CHAPTER 3

REMEMBRANCE 1923

The wind hurtles angrily across the cemetery in harsh gusts so I hold on more tightly to Mama’s gloved hand. September is the time for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, when all of us who have lost a parent must go to visit the graves. Stella tells me that we will have to do this every year, forever, because we have become “half-orphans.” My woollen cap is tugged down firmly over my ears but the cold still bites and burns. Mama whispers some words that I can’t understand as we all stand facing the rock before us that has some writing and a star carved into it. It is one of many that are lined up neatly, row after row.

I stare transfixed at the bunches of flowers sprouting from the earth where I am told that Papa is asleep, never to awaken. I imagine that he has grown the flowers especially for us, each small yellow and white bloom a tiny present from his resting place to remind us of him and to tell us that he has not forgotten. In my hand I am clutching a small smooth stone that I have found on the gravelly roadside as we walked to the grave. When Mama and the others go towards Papa’s place, I go too and kneel to set my little stone next to theirs. Everyone is sobbing, bursting with tears. I think of Papa asleep below the flowers and whisper to him, “Good night, Papa. Don’t be afraid of the dark.”

On the High Holy Days of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, I am taken along to the Yiskor service in the synagogue near our home. There we stand, Mama and we children, in silent prayers in memory of the departed. Those over thirteen must fast for twenty-four hours, no food or even water, to clear their thoughts for remembrance of all that they have and all that they have lost. I have been told I will be expected to do the same when I become thirteen, but I am seven and that seems so far away.

The temple building appears vast as I stare up at the high ceilings and brilliantly coloured cut-out shapes in the glass windows through which sunlight is filtering in ribbons of blue and green. Painted into the glass are pictures of things I can recognize, such as a menorah of candles like the one we have at home and the ram’s horn shoffar like the one that was blown at Rosh Hashanah just a few days before to welcome the New Year. I think of the strange bellowing sound emitted as the trumpeting notes leapt from the twisted horn’s open end and swept through the silent congregation. There are other pictures of trees and clouds, but none of people. Mama says that Jews don’t pray to people, only to an invisible God that we keep in our mind. The only image in my mind is that of Papa’s face.

People around us are reading from their black prayer books as the men chant aloud in their even rhythm, bobbing up and down quickly from the waist, repeating ancient Hebrew blessings, fully absorbed in meditation and religious fervour. They are tented from their heads down nearly to the floor in white silk prayer shawls, tallisim, fringed at the lower borders and banded with broad stripes of blue or black, and on their heads are small round caps, yarmulkes. Some of them have curled the fingers of their right hands at the knuckles, balled into loose fists to tap their chests lightly over and over again on the left side, over the heart.

“Why are they hitting their chests, Mama?” I ask.

“They are remembering their sins committed over the past year, asking God’s forgiveness for any departures from a righteous path, symbolically doing penance for the wrongs, vowing to improve their ways in the year ahead, and beseeching the Almighty to inscribe them into the Book of Life for another year. It means, Nini, that we should try to do better next year and to become kinder to others.”

I can’t understand everything she has told me but I see that the people’s faces are calm and held in deep concentration. They are begging for life despite things they have done that were wrong. We are all facing in the same direction, and at the front is a raised platform with the carved oak doors of the sacred ark, containing the Torah scrolls, written by hand, the most cherished symbol of the Jews. Even as a small child, I can sense the reverence given to these pages of scripture that tell the long arduous tale of our history. When the ark is opened, we all rise in respect. The Torah, wrapped in velvet covers and bright with silver adornments, is carried up and down the centre aisle for all to see. It is held high, in regal splendour, moving away from the ark and then back again in a procession. The heavy scrolls are lifted by the elders, then supported against their shoulders and carried slowly past the worshippers, who remain standing next to their wooden seats. As the Torah is moved by, men stretch forward into the aisle to touch the knotted fringes of their tallisim against the sacred scrolls and then to their lips to show their devotion.

“Can I say a prayer too, Mama?” I ask, tugging her sleeve.

She turns towards me, the trail of a tear marking her cheek, and looks at me in surprise, as if she has forgotten that I am here.

“Yes, Nini, say, ‘Shema Yisrael, Adonai Elohanu, Adonai Ehud,’ which means ‘Listen, all Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One’.”

“But Mama, I don’t understand what that has to do with Papa.”

“It means that there is only one God for all of the Jewish people and that He is watching over us all, even Papa, although he is gone away and we can’t see him any more. Our God will protect us forever. I know that it is hard for you to understand now, but when you grow up it will become easier. For now, repeat these words whenever you want to, in special memory of Papa, and then again when you hear other people saying them too because that is the one prayer that every Jew knows by heart.”

On these High Holy Days the synagogue is a solemn refuge for our family, a sanctuary in which to hide from the personal sorrow and grief we have kept buried within. The assembly of figures wrapped in white join together as one voice, chanting the rhythmic melody of Hebrew words that blend in unison. In some way the strange words and songs work to soothe the blistering wounds of sadness and isolation that we all share. We allow ourselves some comfort and healing, and each of us begins to find her own inner tranquillity.