An Orphan’s Tale

The beautiful thing about what happens when a Jew dies is how quickly you’re buried. A Jew is supposed to be buried on the same day he dies, but usually it’s the day after.

They had a Rabbi at the funeral yesterday who never met Murray and he said the Mourner’s Kaddish is not a prayer for the dead but for the living! It’s a public way to show you still have faith in God and intend to continue to be part of the Jewish community. It does not contain the word DEATH.

What I thought: He must have explained this 1000 times before at 1000 funerals of 1000 different Jews he never knew alive.

I’m glad to be home again with Charlie. Last night we slept at Anita’s house in Ephraim’s room and it wasn’t good for Charlie to sleep there with Murray gone. I kept my eyes open until I was sure he was asleep but he woke up later when Eli was crying and he went to Eli’s room and held him. Eli said his father would be scared in the ground because it would be so dark and he wouldn’t be able to see.

Rivka said Eli was stupid, that being dead was like sleeping and when she said that Hannah slapped her and told her she wasn’t Eli’s mother and then Anita was crying and Charlie was holding her. She looked terrible, with splotches on her cheeks and her hair raggedy looking. I saw Dov using his baseball glove for a pillow.

Charlie isn’t so angry with me anymore. He told me if I wanted to write things down in my storybook the way he knows I do he would wait to go to sleep, but he fell asleep with the lights on anyway. I’ll have to take his shoes off for him when I’m done. If I wasn’t afraid to wake him up now I’d brush his hair back and forth the way he likes to brush mine.

MY SECRET: This afternoon I went for a walk with Hannah into the woods behind the shed where Murray keeps his mower and tools and we kissed again. She has soft lips which are bigger than mine and I don’t think she knows that I never kissed a girl before. I think she thought I was a good kisser or she wouldn’t have asked me to go with her again. She’s less than 2 years older than me, which is a big difference now but won’t be later, but I think she’s too quiet. I don’t know what she thinks about anything at all and she doesn’t know what I think.

Today we kissed for over an hour and when we came back Charlie thanked me for spending time with her. I don’t think anybody would guess because of her being older. I could feel her breasts against my arm muscles. While I kissed her I imagined her naked. When we stopped she didn’t say anything so I asked her if she had a boyfriend and she said no. But I didn’t ask her if I could be her boyfriend because if she said no I wouldn’t have wanted to have her let me kiss with her again.

With things happening so fast it’s hard to miss him yet, but even if she doesn’t, I believe her life is changed now forever!

Today was the 2nd day of the week of SHIVA and their house was full of noise, and even laughing, espe daily when the guys from the Home were there with their wives and families. When only the people from near Mill River were there, then things were quieter and sad. All the non-Jews are too polite. They don’t know what the Rabbi meant about life going on. They don’t understand what the week of SHIVA means to a Jew!

For example: None of them talked about Murray the way Irving and Morty and their wives did. They probably thought it was forbidden to talk about the dead person, but when Murray was talked about was when his death was most real and at the same time when Anita was the least unhappy. She laughed when they told stories about him.

When he was a boy he once organized a hunger strike at the Home so that the boys would be allowed out by themselves, and he sent Herman out in secret to bring back candy bars. His strike worked.

Some religious Jews fast because they believe that being lighter brings one closer to God!

SHIVA comes from the word for Seven for the 7 Days of Mourning and from the word for Rest. Shabbos comes from the same word. During the week of SHIVA people come all the time to visit and talk and bring food. This is what the Rabbis teach: It Is Forbidden To Over-stress Mourning For The Departed.

During the funeral I thought this was what Charlie was thinking: If I become a Rabbi will I use the same stories again and again or will I make up a new speech for every occasion?

The Rabbi said that the Talmud says that every Jew must say to himself, For my sake the world was created.

This is why: God created a single man in the beginning to teach us that if any man ever causes a single other man to die it is as if he caused a whole world to die because it is as if he had killed all those who would have been born to that human being until the end of the world.

Charlie’s eyes flickered when the Rabbi talked about killing and even though he knows he didn’t cause Murray’s death I wonder how he’ll ever feel truly free again.

He surprised me when they were talking about Murray yesterday and he said, Let’s face it, he was never a likable guy.

Anita nodded her head in agreement and so did the others. Irving said that what Murray did for others came about because he wanted to succeed for himself.

I loved the guy, Charlie said, and he meant everything in my life. But he wasn’t likable.

This morning Charlie told me he had a dream and in the dream he was coming home from the hospital and Anita came out of her house and he told her that he was in the delivery room and saw the child born. He said it was a girl. He said that later he would tell Anita about the dream and that they could laugh about how Murray would have analyzed it.

Before, when we were sitting in our room here and it was quiet, Charlie said that while the Rabbi was talking he was worrying about what would happen if a fire would break out in the funeral home. He said he saw himself running out of the home with the Torahs in his arms, saving them one at a time. I told him there were no Torahs in funeral homes. Charlie and I sat next to Anita during the funeral with the children on the other side. Before the service the Rabbi took a razor blade and slit the lapel of Ephraim’s suit for a sign of mourning. Eli and Rivka howled.

Only members of the immediate family above the age of 13 are supposed to have their jackets cut, so I watched carefully to see what Charlie would do and he was watching me all the time he held his jacket lapel out for the Rabbi to cut.

What I said to him in the car right after Murray died is like a sword between us now and what I like about the sword is that I’m glad it’s there and that I said what I did! It makes him respect me, that I could put him under my control with my knowledge.

He doesn’t know what to do about the thing which surprised everybody: that Murray didn’t have a will or any life insurance!

What Irving says: Murray thinks everybody has to live the way he did. He thinks everybody has to struggle. Irving took Charlie aside last night and said that the truth was that Murray was a regular “shmuck” sometimes and that he would have beaten his brains in if he’d known about the will and insurance.

A good question: Years from now if I read this will I remember the things that happened to me and that I thought and that I did not write down?

They closed the school yesterday and a lot of the students were at the funeral, wearing their blazers. Their parents were there too, and what I noticed was how well-dressed their mothers were. If Charlie could buy and sell homes to them he could be rich fast, but he says families like theirs don’t move so much.

He won’t work now for the 7 days of mourning. Even though he’s not supposed to say Kaddish he does, and he sits on a wooden bench the funeral home gave us. So do Anita and the children. All the mirrors in the house are covered with sheets or soaped up and Charlie won’t shave until the SHIVA is over. None of the mourners wear shoes inside the house.

Other things you’re not supposed to do during the week of SHIVA if you’re mourning: leave your home, cut your hair, bathe, use make-up, greet another person 1st, work or talk business, study the Torah except for parts about mourning.

The only time I cried so far was at the cemetery when Charlie got in line and shoveled earth into Murray’s grave. I liked the sound of the dirt falling on the wood. They buried Murray’s Talis and Tephillin in the pine box with him.

What I thought even while I was crying and watching the others shovel dirt on top of the box: Now is a good time to show Charlie how well he can read.

I watched the gravediggers in back of the crowd and I hated them. They lowered the box with a machine and straps that did the work for them. I hated them because they don’t know Charlie and what he feels and what he’s like inside. They couldn’t wait for us to leave.

This is what Charlie said after, just before we got into our limousine: What’s it all about, Danny? What’s it all for?

Irving put his arm around Charlie’s shoulder but he didn’t say anything either.

It’s all so disconnected, Charlie said. To be buried in a place you never knew, to have a funeral where you didn’t grow up, to have no relatives from your childhood who knew you when you were a boy. Don’t you see? he asked.

I wish Sol could have been here, Charlie said, and then instead of crying he made a fist and slammed it into a tree trunk so hard I thought he would break his hand. Irving grabbed him from around the back and held him with his own head resting against Charlie’s back, but when I looked at Charlie’s hand, his knuckles weren’t even cut.

In the car, driving back across New Jersey, I sat next to Herman, with Charlie and Irving and Irving’s wife in front of us. Anita and the children were alone in the car in front of ours with just Anita’s sister. Anita’s mother and father are dead. Her sister has been married and divorced 3 times and has no children.

Herman talked to me about his hobby. He enters contests and sends away for free things. It started when he was a traveling salesman going from city to city and selling leather goods. I liked to have mail waiting for me, he said, so I started clipping out coupons from magazines and entering contests. He put his cheek next to me and made me sniff his free after shave lotion.

His wife helps him now and he showed me her picture. She’s 8 years older than him and lives in a wheelchair. They were married 10 years ago. They get 3 sacks of mail a week from the post office. 2 years ago they won a color TV set from a Reader’s Digest Sweepstakes. Our names are sold from one mail order house to another, he said, and he invited me to visit him sometime to see his collection.

These are things he gets free samples of: stationery, stamps, soap, fabric, magazines, books, key rings, jewelry, silverware, photo albums, records, underwear, and spices.

The best part, he said, are coupons he gets worth over $15 a month. He and his wife belong to several Coupon Clubs. Charlie and Irving and Irving’s wife were very quiet and it made Herman’s voice get lower and lower until he stopped and said, It’s just a hobby.

Hey, Charlie said to Herman, and he grabbed him above the knee and pressed hard. I’m not angry with you, all right? Herman nodded his head up and down, but he was sniffling and crying.

I would have written more down about the funeral and what happened when we 1st got home from Brooklyn and how Charlie and Irving took care of everything, but Charlie woke up while I was writing last night and made me put the light out and get into bed. He said he was worried about Anita because her sister was too nervous for her, and that we would sleep here again tonight.

So I brought my notebook today without telling him. I told Hannah about keeping it but she didn’t even ask me if she could look at what I wrote. I asked her if she wanted to know why I kept a diary and she said OK, but before I could speak she was tickling my right ear with her fingertip. I got angry and told her to stop and she pouted and said that the guys in school said it excited them to have her play with their ears.

She was worried that Dov was spying on us so we picked a different place today. First we went outside and then we circled back and went down into the cellar from the back of the house. There was an old couch in a storage room and we sat on that and I had a hard time concentrating on kissing because I was worried I’d forget my notebook somewhere.

We could hear people walking around on top of us. Once when we stopped to get air I asked her what she would think if her mother married Charlie and she said, I don’t care what she does. I said I didn’t believe her and she said she didn’t care about that either. She made me put my hand on her breast, under her blouse and it was soft like a baby’s skin must be. I was afraid she would see my erection. She ruffled my hair and slid her finger down the back of my shirt.

I thought about how Larry and Steve and the other guys used to brag about what they would do to girls.

I touched her ear the way she touched mine and she started wiggling against me. She stopped kissing me and she blew into my ear in a way that gave me shivers.

IF MR. MITTLEMAN IS RIGHT AND I’M OLDER, THEN WHAT HAPPENED TO MY MISSING YEARS?

When I blew into her ear she moaned like an actress. She was laying almost on top of me and I know she could feel my erection against the inside of her legs but neither of us said anything about it.

What I thought while we were kissing: This will make good pictures for inside my head when I don’t have her with me!

Charlie’s wife and daughter came to the funeral when we were sitting in the waiting room before the service. Lillian kissed him on the cheek. I was surprised at how young and pretty she looked. “Oh Charlie,” was all she said.

“Gee I’m glad you came,” was what he said back, and they held each other for a while.

His daughter is very tall, almost as tall as he is, and she stands up like a ballet dancer. She has a beautiful long neck and her black hair was pinned on top of her head. Even though she’s probably just a year or 2 older than Hannah she looked 5 years older, like a girl in college. She had Charlie’s eyes. When Charlie told them my name and where I came from she looked at me in a way that made me want to tell her everything I feel about Charlie! She wore a tan suit made out of soft wool.

I wonder what she lets guys do to her. She didn’t look as if anybody could ever mess her up in any way, she was so neat, and her clothes fit so right. She wore pale pink lipstick and she kissed her father on the lips.

This is the truth: I don’t really like Hannah but I know I can’t say no to her. Maybe she’ll change. She said one thing which made me think she might have things inside her the way I do. She said, “Nobody knows what I’m like.” I asked her what she meant and she said that her name and the way she looked weren’t what she was like. I said I thought her name was beautiful and that in Hebrew it meant merciful but she said she didn’t like it. My father treated us all like objects, she said, and that was the end of the conversation.

People seemed almost happy today. In the afternoon we had a Minyan and Irving was the leader and the guys kidded him about the way he chanted the prayers. He said he would be here in the morning early tomorrow so we could have a Minyan again and put on Tephillin. You can’t say Kaddish without a Minyan. Ephraim didn’t put on his Tephillin Sunday because it was the first day of mourning, but he does now. Dov took a stack of comics and sports magazines outside and sat in the treehouse all afternoon. He never says anything to anyone.

There were some students from the school there when we prayed in the living room and they looked in at us and I felt as if my heart were in flames. I was so proud because they could see Charlie singing in Hebrew with the others!!

This is what I thought: JEWS DON’T NEED PRIESTS OR CHURCHES BECAUSE WE CAN TAKE OUR RELIGION WITH US ANYWHERE. Wherever there are 10 Jewish men you can have a Minyan for a service, and you can have it in a home. That’s why the men were laughing with Irving after, because doing it this way in a home shows that life goes on, for the individual and for the species too. Murray must have walked on the same spot we prayed on only 3 days ago and it didn’t make us holy and silent.

A good saying from PIRKAY AVOS: “Whole branches of Jewry may wither but the tree lives on.”

If I had to explain to Hannah why I write, I wouldn’t have written all I’m writing today.

Then why did I ask her if she wanted to know why I write my thoughts and experiences down? The answer is that I wouldn’t have asked her if I hadn’t felt she would not be interested.

He was all excited after supper because a longdistance call came from Sol. He’ll be here in 2 days. He saw Murray’s obituary in THE NEW YORK TIMES.

MR. MITTLEMAN JUST LEFT AND MY HEART IS STILL POUNDING! I can’t even remember what I was going to write about Sol and Charlie, he got me so upset. I don’t know how long he was standing next to me but when I looked up he was there. Well, well, he said, the historian of the event.

I’m still sitting in Murray’s office at Murray’s desk the way I was when he reached toward me with his hand and I flinched away. He said he only wanted to touch my hair the way Charlie always does. He said my hair invited touching.

I didn’t say anything. I closed my notebook and he sat down on the other side of the desk and spoke very gently as if he was a different Mr. Mittleman. He asked me how Charlie was feeling and when I said OK he said to let him know if Charlie did anything funny.

He said I shouldn’t be afraid of him, that he wouldn’t take advantage at a time like this. I stared at his cigar and he said this: You’re a very smart boy so you should understand about Charlie. Sometimes he’s like a child and we have to watch over him, all right? Shirley and I agreed that I should speak with you since you’re with him so much. We don’t like him to think we’re spying.

I said that I already said Charlie was OK but he just sighed and spoke very softly as if I wasn’t there. I can still hear his voice! You’re too young to understand, he said, but I’ll tell you this: The hardest part of growing old is that your friends begin to die.

I wouldn’t have thought it when I was his age, he went on. How much I would miss them. He leaned toward me then and said that sometimes he begins missing his friends before they’re even gone! I wanted to keep him from speaking about Charlie anymore so I asked him what he thought of the Rabbi’s sermon and he said he was very moved and that he liked the part about Murray’s name. He laughed and said that when he worked with people more he used to call himself Mittleman the Middleman.

Then he stood and kissed me on the forehead just as if I was his own grandson and left!

This was what the Rabbi said in his sermon: that Murray’s Hebrew name was Moshe, or Moses, and that it had been a fitting name for him for several reasons:

2. Moses also stood for Moses Maimonides, for the name of the Home, and Maimonides was a great Jewish philosopher, Talmudist, and physician. He was called The Jewish Aristotle. “From Moses unto Moses,” the Rabbis said, “there arose none like Moses.”

3. Murray had the exact same full name as another great man in Jewish history, Moses Mendelssohn, who was a German Jew and a hunchback. Born into poverty, Moses Mendelssohn became a great philosopher and theologian and he fought for the emancipation of the Jews in Germany and Switzerland. He opened the 1st free Jewish school in Berlin in 1781.

When the Children of Israel were at the Red Sea and the Egyptians were pursuing them and they cried unto God, God said to Moses, “Wherefore criest thou unto me? Speak unto the Children of Israel, that they go forward.”

God didn’t make any promises. The Rabbi said Murray was like Moses. He went forth without promises. Born poor and an orphan, he never relied on God’s miracles, but took responsibility for his own life into his own hands and went forth and created a beautiful Jewish family and home and became head of an innovative school which influenced educators from all over the country.

This morning Hannah asked if she could visit one of her friends and Anita said she could go if she promised not to stay more than 2 hours. People aren’t coming as much as they did the 1st day. I heard Hannah on the phone and one of her girl friends was supposed to call some guys to meet them there. They’re from Murray’s school so they have off this week.

Charlie and Irving talked about Sol today. Irving said that Sol’s father was a typical German Jew, but I didn’t know what he meant. Charlie said he felt that if he could know more about Sol’s father he’d know more about Sol. He said Sol said his father used to hate poor Jews but not orphans. Sol’s father believed that even the meanest Jew can rise by his own bootstraps. Sol said he was a very great man and had endured great humiliation from non-Jews even though he was wealthy and educated.

After lunch Mr. Alfred came from the Board of Directors and said they wanted to name the school after Murray. Anita surprised me and turned him down and Irving took her side against Charlie.

This is why Anita turned him down: She doesn’t want charity or a widow’s retirement money. SHE WANTS TO TAKE MURRAY’S PLACE AND RUN THE SCHOOL!

She got angry with Charlie and Irving for trying to help her. She wants to help herself. She said she has it all figured out. None of the other teachers can take over because she said Murray hired weak sisters so he could be in control. It’s the middle of the school year and parents will want reassurance. These were her words: How can they say no? I have as many damned degrees as Murray. I was a teacher and a guidance counselor before we started repopulating the world with Jews, remember?

Irving said he thought it was a terrific idea but Charlie asked her what she would do about having the baby. He was looking at her stomach a lot.

She laughed at him and stood in the doorway with her arms around Ephraim and Rivka, pulling them close to her like a real mother. She said if the baby didn’t come during spring recess she might have to take a week off but that Charlie could run the school if she did. She said she heals quickly after 5 children.

Charlie asked what she was going to do about money and said she could refinance her house and told me to explain what refinancing was to her but this got her even angrier. You really mean to see me helpless, don’t you? she said. You’re just like him in that way. She let her children go and stood over Charlie and I saw him smile at her anger. Irving tried to put his arm around her but she pushed him away.

When she asked if there were any more questions Charlie asked her what she was going to do with her spare time but she didn’t laugh. I got brave and I said this: You can use one of Murray’s favorite words when you go to the Board. You can tell them you represent Continuity!

That’s wonderful, she said, but she turned away so quickly and left the room that I couldn’t see how she meant it.

This is what I was thinking while the scene was going on: If Charlie didn’t want her before, he’ll want her now!

The most peaceful part of the afternoon was when Anita was talking about what Murray was like when she first knew him and his great desire was to be a martyr. She asked Charlie and Irving if they remembered the summer she and Murray went to a camp in Ohio to prepare for going to teach in Alabama. She talked about how Murray used to imagine the headlines there would be if he was killed helping blacks. She said everybody knew the government wasn’t going to do anything until whites were killed also and she imitated Murray. I’m the most qualified, he used to say. A family man with small children. An orphan…a Jew…

Morty and Herman came later in the afternoon and so did some of Anita’s relatives and we had enough for a Minyan. We didn’t have a Minyan in the morning. Then everybody reminisced some more about Murray and Herman told the story of how when they used to go to the movies away from the Home Murray would take a bag of warm oatmeal from the kitchen and he’d sit in the front of the balcony and yell suddenly that he was going to be sick. Then he’d open the bag and make believe he had to throw up and let the stuff plop down on guys under them.

When Murray was in college at Columbia, he took Charlie to visit him and Charlie was asked by the football coach to apply there. Charlie started to tell the story to show how good Murray was to him but when he got near the end he was depressed, as if he’d made a mistake.

Morty asked if Mr. Prentiss gave me to Charlie and I didn’t know what he meant. He explained that at the Home, for summers and after school, they would be assigned to work for a Jewish businessman somewhere. Morty had worked for a children’s dress manufacturer in the garment center and now he was a partner. He took out his wallet and showed me pictures of his family and his home on Long Island. In a separate envelope he had pictures of his swimming pool, his snowmobile, his snow blower, his electric barbecue, and his riding mower. What’s money for if you don’t use it? he asked.

Irving said he worked in a corner candy store for a husband and wife and that the brother of the wife had been a college teacher. He inspired me, Irving said. He was the only Jewish man I knew who wasn’t rich but still had time to go to ball games and the beach!

Irving made more jokes again about what a racket college teaching is. He only teaches 6 hours a week and this gives him all the time he wants to read and do things with his family and friends. He talked about how angry he used to make Murray by telling him that if schools like Murray’s multiplied and students came to college knowing how to read and write, it was going to make life impossible for professors. I used to love to tell him how popular the new film courses are, Irving said, and how we charge lab fees for them to pay for the pillows.

I didn’t like to hear Irving make fun of education, so I left the room and went down to the cellar, where Hannah and I were. I didn’t try to argue with Irving because I saw that he knew more than me, but I wanted to say to him that without our emphasis on education the Jews would never have survived and he would never have been born!

I started to masturbate, thinking of Hannah, but I stopped myself because of it still being the 7 days of mourning for Murray. I lay back on the couch with my hands folded on my chest and made believe I was dead and that Sandy was standing over me in my coffin and crying. Her heart was broken.

Going home tonight Charlie asked what I thought about Mr. Prentiss and I said, you meant apprentice didn’t you?

He told me he wanted to invest in me. He believed in my brain, he said. Most people think money makes money, he said. They’re wrong. Brains make money. He said he wanted to give me a stake of $25,000 and I would tell him what to do with it and after I was 21 I could start paying him back.

He laughed and said he was serious. He would need incoming money in a few years because he would stop working by then. He said he told Anita that he was worth over a quarter of a million dollars in liquid cash and that he was telling me also.

The Jewish people who come to see Anita all kiss her. A lot of the non-Jews don’t.

I think Irving admires me for my knowledge. When they talked about Sol’s father founding the Home as the 3rd Jewish orphanage in America I said that the 1st orphanage in America was for children whose parents were massacred by Indians.

Before I came up here I went to see Mr. Mittleman in the office and I smiled at him but he acted like nothing ever happened yesterday. He was the old Mr. Mittleman. In a butcher shop in the 21st century, he said, they were selling human meat. The carcasses were hanging from hooks with prices on them. A Chinaman was $2.50 a pound. An Arab was 10¢ a pound. A Russian was $2 a pound, and a Chasidic Jew was $98 a pound. But why so much for a Chasidic Jew? a man asked. The butcher pointed to the frozen body of a Chasidic Jew which was still dressed in black coat and hat. Why? he asked. Tell me—have you ever tried to clean one of those?

From where I was I spat at him, but my saliva was too foamy and dry. It only went a foot or two. He didn’t show me if he saw what I did. I prayed for God to put a curse on him. But if I had screamed at him about the sufferings that Jews have endured for centuries so that he could be born into the world he would only have found another joke.

I’m glad you never had a son, I said instead. He would have had to disown you.

I came up here and invented something to make Charlie smile. I asked him if he knew why the blue whale was probably a Jew.

Because he’s the smartest animal next to man and he’s the most endangered species.

Also: The mother can only give birth to 1 child every 2 years, which is the lowest rate of all animals.

This is what Murray believed: Prosperity is the enemy of the Jews because it leads to a declining birth rate.

I imagined Mr. Mittleman frozen and hanging from a hook with his eyes and mouth closed and his cigar stuck in where his penis used to be.

A question for Dr. Fogel: Even if you’re a Rabbi, how can you ever prove to a Jew that he should care about being a Jew?

But I would say this also: When they packed Jews into boxcars and ovens they didn’t ask them how much they believed in being Jews!

This is what I imagine Dr. Fogel saying: The answer to the question is HISTORY but if you don’t know HISTORY or feel HISTORY then it won’t be the answer for you!

I was sitting on the floor in Ephraim’s room playing poker with him when he appeared at the door and I knew right away it was him, even before he spoke.

You must be Charlie’s new boy, he said, and he smiled at me in a way that made me feel good. He was taller than I imagined him being and his face was shiny as if it had all been polished, especially the top of his head. He only had a little bit of gray hair left, over his ears, and he wore small round glasses pushed forward on his nose.

Hi Uncle Sol, Ephraim said, and as soon as he did and Sol picked him up and hugged him, Ephraim was crying. Sol told him not to be ashamed, to just let himself go. This is what Sol said to him: Life has mountains and life has valleys. He said it was something his father always said to him.

What I thought: He doesn’t look like the kind of man who had ever been a boy to a father! He looked as if he had always been the age he was now.

He was dressed beautifully. I touched his suit and it felt softer than Hannah’s sweater. His shoes were gleaming black. He was shaved so close I couldn’t even see the little black spots of new hairs. His eyes were a pale gray color that made you relax, and his forehead had 3 lines running across it on top of each other.

You’re the man of the family now, he said to Ephraim. You take care of your mother. She’ll need you now.

I thought of Charlie waiting for us downstairs and I imagined him hugging Sol when Sol had walked through the door into the kitchen. I wanted to run away so instead I said, My name is Danny Ginsberg and I come from the Home. Then he smiled very warmly at me and took my hand in his and told me that Charlie was just telling him all about me and why I was here. I couldn’t stop staring into his eyes, as if I was hypnotized.

Will you help save the Home? I asked, but he only laughed at that and said he could see why Charlie had picked me out. I like directness, he said. I like boys who look me in the eye.

Did you? he said, and he winked at Ephraim the way Charlie does sometimes. Well, he said. More power to your elbow is what Uncle Sol says.

Ephraim showed him the postcards he’d tacked to his bulletin board and Sol said he meant to send him more. I thought of asking him where he was living but I was scared without Charlie there.

When we got to the kitchen Anita’s eyes were all red from crying but Charlie’s face was red from happiness. Irving and Morty and Herman were sitting around the table and this is what I thought: With Murray gone and a chicken roasting and plates and coffee cups and pots and paper bags everywhere the kitchen wasn’t as neat as it used to be and that made it feel more Jewish to me.

I was surprised to see Sol put his arms around Anita and let her cry on his good clothing, but he didn’t seem to mind. He said he wished he could have come earlier. All the men had tears in their eyes too, and I imagined each of them remembering Murray and themselves with Sol when they were boys my age. I saw Charlie in his football uniform with Sol standing next to him and smiling proudly but inside the football helmet I saw my own face.

Anita said she was sorry that Sol had to live to see this but he told her not to worry about him. He told her to worry about herself and her family. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped Anita’s tears. The handkerchief had the letter “S” in a corner, in lace. Anita said she knew what Sol must be feeling and he said we never know what other people really feel!

I thought he was going to say more but instead he said he thought the best thing was to leave Anita alone for a while. I’ll take my boys out, all right? he said.

Anita kissed his cheek then and spoke in a soft voice and said this: Murray said you were the one person who always knew exactly the right thing to do.

Sol was as tall as Charlie. He picked up each of the children and lifted them to the ceiling and hugged them. He tossed Eli in the air and I saw all the children look at him the way they do at Charlie. He said stupid things to them like, Who’s my favorite grandchild named Eli? when he was holding Eli, or when he made Rivka laugh he asked her, Are you Jewish—or just ticklish?

I could tell he’d said the same things to them before. They were the kinds of things Murray talked about and I agreed about never wanting to use them myself. It’s easy to fool children.

Rivka was wearing her horseback riding clothes, with a black velvet hat and leather patches on her thighs. Murray promised to buy her a pony for her next birthday and to build a home for it in the back. I watched her eyes and I thought of Rivka in the Bible and how she deceived her husband Isaac in order to help her favorite son.

Rivka hugged Sol around the leg and said, My Daddy promised he was going to buy me a pony and now he’s dead and I want my pony.

Anita got angry but Sol told her not to get upset. I thought he was going to say he would get the pony for her, but instead he took her out of the room by herself and when they came back inside a few minutes later Rivka asked if she could change her mind if she didn’t want a pony anymore.

Eli started grabbing Sol’s jacket at the door and asking him: Is today tomorrow? Is today tomorrow?

Charlie pulled him away and Eli cried. I remembered Murray saying how Sol would be proud of them bringing another Jew into the world, but I thought to myself: IF SOL’S A JEW, HE’S A PAGAN JEW.

In my head I was thinking of Dr. Fogel and listing the meanings of everybody’s name.

I was still afraid to ask Sol where he lives and where his money comes from, so I said this: Dr. Fogel never calls us by our English names. But nobody paid attention to me. Eli was crying and yelling out loud.

I looked at Charlie’s black curls and his dark face from not shaving, and I didn’t even think of him as being very special anymore. Maybe he’s only special when he’s the way I saw him on those 1st times—making money or with football. I don’t see what meaning his life has if he only does what he does and doesn’t go beyond. Murray made more out of his life even though nobody looked up to him the way they do to Charlie!

I wanted to start reciting every saying I know and telling some of Mr. Mittleman’s jokes but instead I got angry at myself inside for saying anything at all out loud and I told myself to start making new plans!

Whenever Sol looked at me I kept thinking he knew just what was going on inside my head!

Anita kissed Charlie on the cheek and told him to have a good time. Dr. Fogel is still at the Home, I said.

It’s all right, Sol said, but in a kind way. He asked Anita if Dr. Fogel had visited her yet and she said no and Sol said that was just like Dr. Fogel.

Nobody ever called him, I said, and everybody’s eyes went to Charlie because Dr. Fogel was on his list.

I called, Charlie said, and he wasn’t even angry with me. He just wanted to leave.

Anita started laughing after they were gone and when she tried to hug me and kiss me I stiffened myself. You shouldn’t have mentioned him to Sol, she said. But you didn’t know, did you? Then she let me go and looked right at me and I could see she knew that I did know and she laughed again and told me she loved me.

Charlie said he’d call me when he was ready to go back home, so we could change into good clothes.

What I think: HE’S STILL UNDER SOL’S POWER! He still brushes my hair sometimes or says things like What’s it all about, Danny? or What’s it all for? but every-time I want to have a real conversation with him I don’t know what to say and it’s hard to remember how it was when we used to talk.

When I took my Tephillin bag with me this morning he didn’t say anything about it. I put it on the car seat between us and this is what I said out loud to him: Talk to me. Come on. Talk to me.

He laughed at that. My name is Charlie Sapistein, he said, and I come from the Home, but he wouldn’t say anything else. After breakfast he went into the city to see Sol at his hotel and bring him back here and as soon as he was gone Anita started worrying about not being able to work outside. She was worried about raking leaves if an early snow should fall on them and she said she still had bulbs to plant in the ground for the spring. She walked from room to room in the house talking out loud about all the things she had to do, until some of the neighbors came by with food they had cooked.

I remembered Murray saying Anita wasn’t like Charlie and himself because she knew how to enjoy doing nothing.

A question: If Charlie stays calm and quiet will I have to start talking more? If he changes and I don‘t change too, how will we live together with neither of us ever saying what we’re thinking and feeling?

Other things that happened so far today: I went into Ephraim’s room in the morning when he was still sleeping. What do you think this is, I said, your birthday? and I tickled him under his pajamas with my cold hands. He got angry and called me a goddamned orphan and I said, It takes one to know one.

He got out of bed and got dressed while I made his bed for him. Then he put on his Tephillin the way he does every morning and I asked him to watch me while I put mine on. I did it right. We prayed together in his bedroom like 2 old men, walked back and forth with Sidurim in our hands and Talises across our shoulders and the black straps wound around our arms and hands and heads. When we recited the

we both stood together, facing east, and shuckled back and forth. I finished praying before he did and I told him that was the 1st time in my life I ever prayed with Tephillin on with somebody else.

He took his Tephillin off and so did I and we kissed the boxes before we put them in our Tephillin bags. He went into the bathroom and he put his face in front of the mirror and wiped away a patch of soap to see how dark his beard was getting. He pressed his pimples so they bled. His hair comes down to his shoulders like his mother’s. He asked me if I’d ever kissed a girl and I said, Sure. He asked if we ever smuggled them into the Home and I said no. He said his father and Charlie once laughed about the time they dressed a girl up like a boy and brought her into the dormitory at the Home. All the guys chipped in for her. I thought about Larry Silverberg and the other guys in their hideout and for a few seconds I felt that I really missed them.

I asked him if he ever kissed a girl and he said only at kissing parties. He doesn’t go to his father’s school. None of their children do. He goes to a regular public school and he said his father didn’t know about the sex parties the students in the Mill River school had every weekend. They take off their clothes and the girls let any of the guys pet them wherever they want. He said he even saw photos.

Hannah came into the bathroom in just her skirt and brassiere and Ephraim pushed her out. I turned my face away. What’s the big deal? she said.

We sat in his room and he said he was worried about Hannah and about the effect Murray’s death was having on her. They still kissed hello and good-bye on the lips, he said, even after she got breasts.

Then I asked him to show me about his musical instruments and if he thought it was too late for me to start to learn. I blew some notes on his clarinet and his flute but I thought about how, to really learn, you’d have to be living in 1 place for a long time and have your own instrument and the time for practice.

We have some of the same favorite books: THE CHOSEN by Chaim Potok, THE CAINE MUTINY by Herman Wouk, PARIS UNDERGROUND by Etta Shiber, THE PEARL by John Steinbeck, and EXODUS by Leon Uris, and these are some of the other authors we both like: Ray Bradbury, Theodore Sturgeon, James Ramsey Ullman, Jack London, Franz Kafka, Isaac Asimov, and James Thurber. We agreed that our favorite book was THE CHOSEN. It was the 1st conversation we had that made us friends.

WHILE WE WERE TALKING I DECIDED THAT WHAT I’D LIKE TO DO SOMEDAY WOULD BE TO WRITE BOOKS TOGETHER WITH EPHRAIM! We could write books about the Jewish underground in Poland during the war smuggling Jews to Freedom, the way the French did in PARIS UNDERGROUND.

There were over 3,000,000 Jews in Poland before the war. After the war there were less than 300,000 left!

We could write a history of 2 great underground Jewish heroes who were boys like us, so that young Jewish boys would want to read our books and that way we could make them feel for the rest of their lives what it means to be a Jew! We could write about the Warsaw Ghetto and the frozen children in the snow and the soap the Nazis made from Jewish flesh and we could spend our lives learning the True History of what really happened even while we made up some adventures for the 2 boys to make the books more exciting!

We could make young people think about questions like this: If you were a Jewish leader and you could have saved 100 Jews by cooperating with the Nazis, what would you have done?

We could make one of the boys into somebody who escaped from the death pits of Babi Yar, climbing through the blood-soaked bodies and living out in the woods, until he meets the other boy, near the Russia-Poland border. We could take turns on different books on which of us would be the historian, getting the facts, and which of us could be the writer, making up the stories!

We played chess together but I couldn’t think more than 2 moves ahead and I kept apologizing for losing so quickly.

What Ephraim told me: He wants his mother to move to a different place now where there are more Jews so they can go to a regular synagogue instead of making all the services and holidays in their own house. He put on Tephillin every morning with Murray, and on Friday nights and Saturday mornings the family made Shabbos services in the living room, with Murray explaining the portion of the Torah for each week.

It’s very late but Charlie is feeling good again, from the peaceful Shabbos meal we just had.

What I realize: The more I write, the more peaceful he looks. If I stayed up all night writing, he would stay up all night staring at me. If I left my notebook on his desk right now I don’t think he’d even want to look inside, that’s how peaceful he looks.

Will just the act of writing down the beginning of my plan to change things make him start to change in a different way and if he does will his changing start to change me so that I won’t need my plan as much?

What I think: There’s a lot more. It’s like a question with mirrors inside it, facing each other, with Daniel Ginsberg in between!

At supper Anita said the last fight she and Murray had was because he asked her what she wanted for her birthday and she said a stopwatch, and he said that was nonsense. I like to time things just to see how long they take, Anita said, but Murray couldn’t accept something like that.

The table was beautiful, with a white cloth and candles. Nobody was sure what you did about Shabbos during the week of SHIVA so we called Irving, but he wasn’t home.

We always did things Murray’s way, Anita said, and Charlie told her to lay off him, that he couldn’t answer back.

I said that Shabbos was the most important holiday of the year and that it took precedence over everything. If you couldn’t have a funeral on Shabbos then you could probably stop the mourning period for Shabbos.

I used something I’d stored up and I said: THE SABBATH IS MADE FOR MAN, NOT MAN FOR THE SABBATH.

Before we made Shabbos, on the way back here, something happened that made me start testing Sol. Going around a curve a flock of birds flew right in front of us, swooping up as if they came from under the car. They were coming from old railroad tracks near the road and one of the birds was too slow and got hit by the front of the car so that specks of blood spattered across the hood and hit the windshield.

Charlie pulled to the side of the road. He got out and wiped the windshield and it made me feel weak to see him pick a piece of the bird out of the car’s grill the way I feel weak when I think of how foolish it is to dream about us just continuing to live together, even if Charlie doesn’t want to give me up!

I made myself think of what I would have to do if I were Charlie and I didn’t like the answer!

When he got back in I said that Dr. Fogel once told us that in Yiddish his name means bird.

I couldn’t stop what I was thinking from coming out and I DIDN’T WANT TO! The reason the Home is going to close is because of the new abortion laws, I said. There are hardly any Jewish orphans left. We’re an endangered species.

Sol patted Charlie on the shoulder and asked him if he remembered how Murray used to have little sayings like that when he was a boy. I kept going and said: They don’t make orphans like they used to, but Charlie didn’t react even though Sol was praising me.

I’ve never believed Jews should have abortions, Sol said then and I saw Charlie’s eyes look the way they did when he knew what Murray was going to say next. There were too many of us lost, Sol said. We need more Jews in the world, don’t you see? We Jews have an obligation to repopulate is what Uncle Sol believes.

Then he began talking about Jewish history and his eyes got bright and I could see why Charlie and the others looked up to him when they were boys, even though he’s like just an old man now.

He spoke right to me. Let’s face it, young man, he said. We Jews are different for many reasons and the most obvious one is that we’re more intelligent. The world needs our talents. It’s as simple as that, though one doesn’t say so too loudly these days.

I looked at the back of Charlie’s thick neck and remembered him telling me how when he was a boy he used to imagine Sol inside a tent in a general’s uniform, planning an attack and surveying battle maps and how he and Murray had once decided that if Sol were leading the Jews into battle, they would have done whatever he told them to. He said that Sol and Dr. Fogel were the same in one thing, that they got their biggest thrill when the Home’s football team beat teams of non-Jews.

I can tell Charlie wants to speak to Sol about their living together but he doesn’t know how.

Also: He’d like to ask me for the best words to use with Sol and that’s what gets him so angry, BECAUSE HE DOESN’T REALLY WANT TO NEED ANYBODY!

“I have separated you from the nations that you be mine,” I recited for Sol and this kept him going. He talked about the laws of Evolution and the Survival of the Fittest and said he’d even discussed his theory with 2 different Nobel prize winners and that they agreed with him in private that Jews are genetically superior beings. He said that what happened was that during centuries of persecution all the unfit Jews had either died or been made into Christians. Without a Homeland Jews had only an idea to join them and make them remain Jews—the idea of the Torah and of being the people chosen to bring the Torah to mankind.

He spoke about the horrors of the Inquisition and of how Jews were expelled from one country to another, having to depend only on their wits and religion. Did I know, he asked, that until recently Jewish medical students right here in the United States of America were allowed to learn dissection only on Jewish corpses?

Charlie told him to stop scaring me, that the week had been hard enough, but he already had his wallet out and he took a picture from it of Jews hanging on meat hooks in Romania from 1940 with the words CARNE KOSER painted on their bodies. He said he kept it to remind himself and his Gentile friends that we’re survivors of survivors!

You shut up, Charlie said to me, but I didn’t and I could feel my eyes starting to shine. Mr. Levine calls those of us still left in the Home retards and retreads, I said, and my voice was even stronger. And if you believe what you say about Jews and abortions and if you’re so proud of the Home, then why don’t you help save it? Aren’t we good enough for you anymore? We’re Jews too!

Sol looked at Charlie and his eyes were soft again. I don’t understand, he said. What does the boy want? Haven’t I done my share?

But I could tell from his voice that he knew his anger was only encouraging me. I’m not finished, I said. I want to know why if you care so much about repopulating the world with Jews, you were never married yourself!

But I said the wrong thing and the argument was over. Sol laughed and Charlie relaxed with him. Of course, Sol said. Of course. I always told my boys to follow my example and never marry, didn’t I? He winked at Charlie and then at me and he gave me his punch line: And I told them they should give the same advice to their children.

When we got home I left Charlie and Sol with Mr. Mittleman in his office and came up here to take my shower. Mr. Mittleman shook Sol’s hand and asked, How’s business? and Charlie tried to laugh but his laugh was forced. Sol patted Mr. Mittleman on the back and called him a great kidder.

His vocation is living, Charlie said, but I could see he was sorry he said anything.

Charlie gave his saying about stomping the grapes, but it didn’t make him or Sol feel better. Mr. Mittleman just shrugged. It’s unnatural, he said.

I came upstairs and took off my clothes and got into the shower. I was thinking about the sound the bird made when it thunked against the car when suddenly the glass door to the shower opened and Mrs. Mittleman was standing there looking at me. I covered myself with my hand but she didn’t move away.

I heard the water running, she said. And I thought all the men were downstairs with Max.

That’s all right, she said, and she smiled at me. I’m glad I caught you alone. It’s nice, she said. I wanted to tell you that—it’s been very nice since you came to live with Charlie. It’s nice to hear your voices at night through the ceiling when you talk with each other. It’s nice for him not to be alone so much and to share things. And I’m glad you were with him when it happened to Murray, don’t you think?

I saw specks of water on her eyeglasses. She had one hand on the shower door and one hand on her hip. You wouldn’t see it, darling, she said, but he’s much less hostile to me since you came, so you shouldn’t be sorry.

She started to close the door and then she smiled in a new way and raised her eyebrows. But I’ll tell you this, she said. You’re going to make the girls very happy someday, believe me.

Anita asked Sol to make the Kiddush tonight but he said Ephraim was the man of the family. We all wore Yamulkas and put shoes back on and when Anita covered her eyes to chant the blessing over the Shabbos candles I thought she would cry, thinking of Murray’s absence. Instead she smiled. After she lit the candles we all kissed each other GOOD SHABBOS. When the phone rang nobody answered it. Anita wore a beautiful white dress with lace across her bosom. She said it was getting tight and this would probably be the last time she would have a chance to wear it.

Ephraim washed his hands at the sink, using a glass of water, and I did also. Dov and Eli were in line behind me. Then Ephraim made the blessing over the Challahs, which were covered with a napkin and we each made a

and ate a piece. Hannah served us chicken soup. When she came near me I could smell perfume on her like roses. She was so sweet and quiet that it reminded me she’s not even 15 years old and she doesn’t know very much about life!

It was very peaceful, after the company there was all week long, and when Anita spoke about Murray’s love of Shabbos it grew even quieter. I looked into Hannah’s eyes across the flames from the 2 candles and she looked right back into mine. Her dress was the color of violets and her skin was brown next to it, like toast. Ephraim’s Adam’s apple slid up and down and I saw tears in his eyes. Dov wouldn’t eat anything. Anita said Murray always looked forward all week long to Shabbos and he used to say it forced him to say STOP to his life, and to linger over it and appreciate it. He never did any work at all on Shabbos and when Shabbos was over he would say what a feat this was for a Jewish Calvinist like himself.

After we passed a bowl and cup around to wash our hands and said the prayers after the meal, I helped Hannah and Ephraim clear the table. Dov brought in his baseball glove so Sol could help him oil it. Anita put Eli and Rivka to sleep. I wanted to kiss with Hannah but she seemed shy like a new girl and I was afraid she wouldn’t want to in her good dress.

He went for a walk by himself after supper. He goes for 2 walks every day. In New York City he takes a walk on the streets before he has breakfast when the streets are empty. He was still gone when Charlie and Anita went outside for a walk together. They were gone for more than an hour. She looked happy when she came back inside later.

Today was a beautiful day. When I woke up Charlie was still feeling peaceful and I didn’t ask him why. His face showed me he thought he had no worries at all.

I didn’t even wait to get dressed. I picked up the real estate book and when he made a face I told him it was a good book to start with because it was something he cared about. We sat up in bed together with our backs against the headboard and the covers across our knees and he started reading from a section called THE RISKS OF USING BORROWED MONEY. He read 3 sentences before he got stuck, but I said the next word for him and he was able to go on.

Mrs. Mittleman knocked on the door and came in with a tray full of good things to eat: Danishes and toast and jam and scrambled eggs and juice and coffee for Charlie. Charlie wasn’t even embarrassed. He just smiled at her and said, Who’s my favorite woman in this house? and she bent over and he kissed her under the ear.

We read 2 pages before we stopped and I saw how he mixed up letters in certain words so that DEBT would be BED and DEAR would be READ and WAS would be SAW. I wrote out the following sentence for him: NAME NO ONE MAN, and told him to read it both ways.

We laughed and ate and worked some more. The more we read the worse he got and I tried to be very patient with him so he wouldn’t get angry with himself. I watched his eyes and saw how they jumped, even though his body looked relaxed. When he finished a paragraph sometimes I asked him to tell me in his own words what he just read but he couldn’t. They’re just words, he said to me. He wanted to stop a few times but I told him how well he was doing and that from the things I’d read what he was able to do showed he could probably be cured very quickly.

He told me he wasn’t going to bring Sol from the city today because Sol had people to see there and I thought that was the real reason he was relaxed with me. He said he always worried that he had brain damage and I said I didn’t think so because the only thing he had trouble with was reading. If he had brain damage it would have slowed him up in other ways. Brain injuries are called ALEXIA, I said, and he had DYSLEXIA.

I told him that Leonardo da Vinci wrote from right to left and he said it didn’t make him Jewish.

I covered words with a card and made him read slowly, so he could only see one line at a time. I made him read sentences over and over with his finger on each word. We took long pauses between sentences and paragraphs, to eat and to talk. He said Hebrew was always easier for him because it went the wrong way.

I told him I read that sometimes you didn’t even need a lot of training, you could improve just from taking hormones or vitamins, but he said he didn’t want anybody messing around with his glands. I told him to close his eyes and then I touched his fingers one at a time and he could tell me which finger I was touching each time, to show him his brain was OK.

Mittleman was standing over him and laughing at him and blowing smoke in his face, and he laughed at me, but I said I meant it. He said he’d put it on film in his head and he did and it got him so upset that he began to read more quickly, until his anger wore off.

He could read titles easily, and sections with numbers and tables and amounts of money. We found a section about the FHA and “608s” and Charlie said that had been how Mr. Mittleman became rich originally. Just after the war the FHA insured mortgages for 90% of the real estate value in order to stimulate construction of garden type apartments. Charlie explained to me how Mr. Mittleman bought low cost land and valued it higher than the price he paid so that he got mortgages for more than 100% of the cost of the projects and long term loans at low interest rates to pay them back! The result: He actually got cash above his cost even before he sold or rented the land and apartments.

When Charlie read the words in the book and saw that they said the same thing he said, his eyes lit up and he slapped me on the back and said, Hey—what do you think of that?

I had him stop before he got tired. We got dressed and came downstairs and Mr. Mittleman asked Charlie what he was going to do and Charlie said: Nothing. It’s Shabbos.

Then I asked Mr. Mittleman if he knew why we would benefit most if the whole world were really Jewish and when he didn’t know I told him it was because the Talmud says that orphans don’t ever have to pay taxes and that their land is considered sacred whether they’re rich or poor! Charlie was proud of me for knowing that, even though I think it made him think of Dr. Fogel’s land.

We took a walk to do some shopping for Mrs. Mittleman and Charlie talked about Murray as if Murray lived a long long time ago. He said I shouldn’t be fooled by Anita, that she had loved Murray very much. He told me about the time Murray found out about Jewish orphanages in California which had something called The Cottage Plan where the orphans lived in regular houses and went to regular schools and where boy and girl orphans lived next to each other.

Murray wrote out a petition and plan to transform the Home into The Cottage Plan and proved it would save money, but nothing ever came of it. Murray said they were worried about controlling us if we got outside too much, Charlie said.

We walked through a park near our house and sat on a bench watching kids younger than me play football. Charlie told me that Sol used to tell them statistics on how bad it was for Negro orphans and how lucky they all were to be in the Home. They posted newspaper pictures on the walls whenever there were fires in Negro orphanages, and he always remembered what Sol said about half the Negro orphans dying before they reached the age of 5.

Did he? Charlie said, and he shrugged as if to say that it didn’t matter. What was important was that he remembered it.

What happened between Sol and Dr. Fogel? I asked, and Charlie didn’t get angry with me for asking. He said he never really understood all of it. He said it happened before any of his group had come to the Home but that Murray found out the whole story and that it was mostly about religion. He said Dr. Fogel wanted to be Director of the Home before the war but that Sol made the Board of Trustees vote against him because he didn’t want the Home to be Orthodox. In those days Sol believed the Home should be American 1st and Jewish 2nd.

Then Charlie laughed about how upside down things can get sometimes, and how Dr. Fogel wound up being the one with the land and the money and Sol wound up being the one who believed in Israel. I asked him if he was going to tell Sol about Dr. Fogel’s land but he didn’t answer that question.

I remembered a joke he made about imagining the 2 of them living with him and taking care of each other in the house he was going to buy for us and I asked him this: Do you ever imagine them coming to your funeral together?

After lunch we took a nap together and then went to Anita’s house. Charlie made a fire in the living room fireplace and we all sat there in front of it. Slats and Louie and Jerry and their families came and after the 1st hugs and words about Murray, people were cheerful. Slats and Louie and Jerry live together in the same apartment house in Brooklyn, on Ocean Parkway. Slats and Louie own a hardware store together and Jerry is a bookkeeper for a pocketbook manufacturer in Queens.

When the women were out of the room Slats and Louie talked about the fart wars they had in the dormitory when they were boys and they teased Slats and asked if he could still play the 1st line of MY COUNTRY TIS OF THEE in farts. Jerry asked Charlie what ever happened to the jar of beans the guys gave him when he married Lillian. He was supposed to put 1 bean in the jar for every time they made love the 1st year and take 1 bean out for every time they did it the 2nd year, and Jerry gave 10 to 1 odds there’d still be beans left at the end of the 2nd year.

Beans, beans good for your heart,
The more you eat, the more you fart!

Slats whispered to Charlie that he spoke to his brother-in-law who’s a lawyer and that nothing could happen to Charlie for how Murray died. Slats, Louie, and Jerry sat on the couch side by side, facing us, and talked about how much private schools cost for their children in Brooklyn. Jerry asked, if an Arab and a Negro both fell from the top of the Empire State Building at the same time, which one would hit the ground 1st, and when nobody knew Jerry answered, Who gives a shit?

He talked about the workers in his factory who come up from Colombia in South America. They’re happy as long as you give them overtime, he said. They stay 5 years and save money and go back and new members of their families come to take their places. Louie said he kept a gun in his dresser under his underwear. They talked about a guy named Pikeface who was at the Home when they were boys and who made a zipgun in workshop and was sent to reform school and was eventually killed by gangsters.

Charlie sat without talking and cracked walnuts in his fingers for Dov. Slats remembered when Sol used to say that Charlie was so fast and strong he could throw a strawberry through a battleship!

When they were gone we gathered in the kitchen for Havdalah to end Shabbos. Ephraim chanted the blessing over the wine and Anita opened a jar of cloves because the Tsumin box was gone and we sniffed them. Then Hannah and Rivka held a braided candle up and Anita lit it and whispered to them: Hold it as high as you want your husband to be!

After supper Charlie and Anita went outside together again for a walk until more people came to visit. They were parents of students from Murray’s school and they brought baskets of candy and fruit. I stayed away from Hannah even though I could tell she wanted to be with me. Guys from the school football team came but Charlie hardly noticed them.

Anita was tired so we came home early and sat downstairs having milk and cake with Mrs. Mittleman. Mr. Mittleman was in his office typing. His movie projector is put away for the whole week. Mrs. Mittleman talked about how young Sol always looked for his age. She told us a secret: that she’s trying to talk Mr. Mittleman into retiring with her to Florida. Her bones hurt her when the snow comes.

When we came up here Charlie and I laughed about what she said. It’s been a beautiful day but that doesn’t mean that his change is permanent. I have to be ready! I don’t care if he did it just to throw me off guard or if he doesn’t know what makes him different, so I went ahead and telephoned Dr. Fogel!

When I woke up this morning Charlie had already gone into the city to get Sol to bring him back. The 7 days of SHIVA were over in the morning but we stayed at Anita’s all day until the sun went down. As soon as we came home Mr. Mittleman gave Charlie a stack of phone messages from all week long and Charlie started telephoning and talking to Mr. Mittleman about houses and money.

I sat in the office watching him and I couldn’t hide the feelings that showed in my face. This is what Charlie said to me between calls: Life goes on, Danny. Didn’t you hear what the Rabbi said? Life goes on.

I told him that close relatives are supposed to mourn for 30 days and he didn’t answer me.

I can hear him shouting at Mr. Mittleman now. If he comes up I know he’ll make me stop writing. I’m glad I started the 1st part of my plan yesterday even though it was peaceful between us then.

After supper Mr. Mittleman took out his movie projector and sat in the living room watching. In the movie Mrs. Mittleman and 2 friends were in a canoe. Mr. Mittleman told us the man and woman both died years ago. We spent our honeymoon with them, Mr. Mittleman said. They had 2 children, a boy and a girl. When the boy was 15 and the girl was 14 they were both killed in an auto crash. The parents died shortly thereafter.

This is what Mrs. Mittleman said: A wife who loses a husband is called a widow. A husband who loses a wife is called a widower. A child who loses his parents is called an orphan. But in Yiddish they say there is no word for a parent who loses a child, that’s how awful the loss is!

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING THAT HAPPENED TODAY IS THAT MY PLAN STARTED TO WORK! DR. FOGEL CAME AND CHASED SOL AWAY!

When Dr. Fogel drove up to Anita’s house in the morning Sol was in the middle of telling us about all the boys he visits on his cross country trip. He told us something about each family. There were a lot of people in the living room listening to him. Morty and Irving and Herman and their wives and children were there, along with neighbors and people from the school. They all came early, bringing things for breakfast. Sol talked about one of his boys who was a ventriloquist and some of the visitors had seen him on TV. Sol said he may get his own show soon. Some of the boys he talked about seeing were younger than Charlie and his group, and some were older.

When Dr. Fogel entered the living room with Anita holding his good hand everybody’s eyes turned to them. Dr. Fogel was dressed in the old brown suit he wears to school and his face was the color of ashes. He wore a Yamulka.

Charlie stood before anybody else and his hand was on his chest and I could tell he was listening to his heart through his fingertips. Dr. Fogel told him about me telephoning and he stared at the cut in the lapel of Charlie’s jacket and at Charlie’s beard but he didn’t say anything about them. Instead he told us all we should be wearing Yamulkas. Doesn’t it matter to you even now? he asked.

Herman kept whispering to Morty: He looks just the same. He looks just the same.

Then Sol got up and walked to the door and put his hand out to Dr. Fogel. Well, Mister Fogel, he said. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? I’m sorry we have to meet on such an occasion.

Dr. Fogel’s limp arm was swinging lightly at his side and he cocked his head to one side but his Yamulka didn’t fall off. He looked at his right hand and he laughed at Sol very quickly and then looked away and motioned to me to come to him. He called me by my Hebrew name and asked me where he could wash.

I knew who he was when he walked in, Anita said, and her face was glowing. I recognized him from Murray’s descriptions.

Dr. Fogel said he was very hungry from his long ride and when I told him Anita was Kosher, he said, It’s why I could come, yes? Then he spoke to the room and said that it showed how such a law kept us together as Jews. He said that the day of burial counted as a day of SHIVA and that the week of SHIVA was 6 days plus 1 hour to show that we Jews don’t believe in making grief worse. He took Anita’s hand and told her he was glad he got here in time.

By then Sol was stalking out of the room and it made me laugh to see how quiet and stunned the non-Jews were at the scene. Charlie started to go after Sol but Dr. Fogel said to let him go because even if he stayed there wouldn’t be enough Jews for a Minyan. I said that the closest Shul was over 30 miles away and that it was Reformed. Dr. Fogel held Charlie’s wrist and whispered to him that they should talk about the land when the SHIVA was over.

I’ve never seen Charlie angrier with me than he was then! He glared at me and yanked his hand away from Dr. Fogel and left us and Anita excused herself also, saying she would see Sol to the door if he was leaving.

Dr. Fogel was happy. Please continue your conversation, he said to the room and he let me lead him to the bathroom where he washed his hands and made a blessing over them. He was happy to see the mirror over the sink soaped up. While we were in the bathroom, Dov and Rivka came to the door and stared at us.

When we went back into the living room everybody was gone except Herman, Morty, and Irving.

Ephraim came in and I introduced him to Dr. Fogel and Dr. Fogel kissed Ephraim on his forehead and said something quickly in Hebrew, with his hand on Ephraim’s forehead.

Tell me about yourselves, Dr. Fogel said to his former students, and he called each of them by their Hebrew names to show he remembered. He smiled warmly at them and apologized for not having come sooner in the week. He said he was truly interested in what had become of their lives.

They talked very easily after that, with Irving starting, about themselves and their jobs and their homes. They brought their wives and children in to introduce to him, and the children sat on the rug with Anita’s children and listened to Dr. Fogel ask questions. He wanted to know if they kept Kosher homes and Morty and Irving’s families said they did but when Herman said he didn’t Dr. Fogel didn’t cluck inside his mouth. He praised the children for being able to give their Hebrew names and he gave each child a nickel, a penny, and a piece of sucking candy. They all stared at his arm and whenever he caught one of them doing it I saw him smile. This is a riddle he asked: If you want to get something precious from the other side of a Shul, do you go through the Shul to get it, or around? Ephraim knew the answer from Murray, and why. You go around, he said, because a Shul is not a means to an end.

Just before 10 o’clock Dr. Fogel went to Murray’s study and found a prayer book he wanted. He prayed by himself from Tihilim. Then he went around from room to room and took sheets off mirrors. The SHIVA was over. He told Ephraim and the others they could put their shoes on. He went into the kitchen and ate some food and made Anita and Ephraim eat with him and then he asked Charlie to telephone for a taxi. Charlie will take you back, Anita said, and Dr. Fogel didn’t wait for Charlie to answer. Good, he said.

Charlie didn’t tell me to come along. Before he left he went into the bathroom and shaved off his beard with Murray’s razor.

Also: I asked Dr. Fogel about the Home’s motto and he smiled at me for knowing! He said he never told anybody to change it because it always reminded him of Jews like Sol’s father who built the Home!

These are other things that happened today after Dr. Fogel left: I practiced my Haftorah. Mr. Alfred and a new man came and spoke with Anita in Murray’s study. Dov fell out of an apple tree but he wasn’t hurt. During lunch Eli fell asleep on the floor and wet his pants. Hannah handed me a note and I went into the bathroom and read it and this is what it said:

Don’t you like me anymore? I still like you. Please don’t be angry with me for going to my girl friend’s house. I hope I’ll see you a lot even after this week is over. I think you’re very special and different. Why don’t you want to be alone with me?

In the car going home I got Charlie angry by saying that someday he would meet all of Sol’s other boys at Sol’s funeral. He slapped me across the face and didn’t say he was sorry.

What I think: Charlie got angry because he knows that I know that he thinks that Sol thinks the exact same thought in his head every time he goes around the country and wonders if it’s his last trip. That’s what I decided Sol’s life is for!

Ephraim and I went for a walk together in the woods. He knows the names of birds and trees and wildflowers. He told me he once told Murray that Murray wouldn’t have cared so much about being Jewish if he hadn’t been the only Jew where he lived. I called him a would-be Jew, Ephraim said, and I never took it back.

When we said good-bye tonight Anita hugged me and kissed me and whispered into my ear, “I love you.” Ephraim said he’s not going to shave or cut his hair or put on new clothes for 30 days. The 7 days of Mourning come from the 7 days Joseph mourned for his father Jacob and the 30 days come from the 30 days Israel mourned for Moses. Nobody knows where Moses is buried because he didn’t want people to come to his grave and worship him.

What I decided: When I die, even though I believe that burying bodies in the ground is a waste and doesn’t do anybody any good, I won’t give my body to science or for anything else. I’ll leave instructions to be buried like a Jew because I want to be buried the same way Jews have always been buried for thousands of years.

Rivka and Dov wanted to watch TV right away after SHIVA was over but Ephraim wouldn’t let them. Anita said they’d discuss it later. Charlie didn’t say what he and Dr. Fogel talked about when he drove Dr. Fogel into Brooklyn. He telephoned Sol and they have a meeting for tomorrow when Charlie will offer him his plan!

Here he comes now. This is the truth: If Murray hadn’t died when he did I would have to do what I’m going to do anyway!

Five