The intermediate days came to an end. The next day—and the day thereafter, the last two days of Passover—the second round of festival activity would resume.
That holiday morning Ite rose early. Her face was puffy, as if she hadn’t slept enough. Silently and looking preoccupied, she began straightening up. This morning she wasn’t pretty at all, and the full extent of her ample girth was plain to see. Yoyne walked about like a stranger. He dressed slowly, whistled a bit, and then, prancing as usual, left the house, saying that he was going to the synagogue.
Mother also got up early. Her face looked tired, worried, and she seemed to have grown taller during the night. In the cool light of the sun, now poised over the roof of the opposite house, the pupils of Mother’s eyes took on a greenish coloring. She, too, was silent. The whole house was silent.
Ite spent quite a while cleaning and, it must be said, she did make the house look nicer than the day before. But that only seemed to intensify the sadness that filled every corner. The sunshine from the neighboring roof barely reached the top of our windows. The house lay deep in shadow. It didn’t look festive at all, but rather like an ordinary, weekday winter evening.
Father and I went to pray at our usual place, that is, the besmedresh, the small study house.
Today we were promised a special musical treat.
It was the custom in our town for synagogues to exchange cantors on the first two and last two days of the Passover holiday. Thus the cantor of the large synagogue—known simply as the shul, where Yoyne said he was going—accompanied by his choir boys, would be coming next door to our besmedresh. Our own prayer leader, Moshke the cook, who took leave to sing out the service to the tune of Polish military marches, would, in exchange, preside at the shul. Not surprisingly, the shul that morning stood cold and empty. On its ornately carved eastern wall, the reliefs of harps and clarinets, drums and trumpets, which always seemed to accompany the cantor, were now mute, struck dumb, like sheep before the rain.
In the besmedresh, on the other hand, you couldn’t squeeze in a pin. Half of the people from the shul and all of the regulars of the besmedresh, as well as visitors from the smaller prayer houses—all crowded inside to hear the gifted cantor and his choir boys.
This cantor, an old Lithuanian Jew, chanted the prayers so beautifully, with such feeling, that the memory of his performance lingered on well into the summer. The service lasted long past midday, but the worshipers were exalted and returned home feeling inspirited.
During the service, as the cantor’s voice soared, the congregation hummed along, tapped their feet, and urged him on with upturned thumbs. But no one was as masterful as the old Lithuanian cantor himself.
When Father and I returned from the besmedresh, the house was still steeped in silence. Everything was neat and tidy, but it felt cold and strange. We sat down to eat. The plates clattered with a loud, hollow ring. The knives and spoons, which had been so thoroughly boiled and cleansed for Passover, looked up at us from the table in their gray, everyday guise. Father reported on the cantor’s magnificent performance, but no one was listening.
“Is anything the matter?” Father asked.
He swept his eyes around the table, looking at everyone with his hard-of-hearing stare. He couldn’t understand. Wasn’t today a holiday? Didn’t we, thank God, have everything we needed to celebrate? So why was everyone looking so sad? Did a ship laden with chicken droppings sink in the ocean? Ite wasn’t at the table at all. After hurriedly serving the food, she hastened back to the kitchen.
“What’s wrong with Ite? Why isn’t she here with us?” asked Father.
“She’ll sit down in a minute. She still has a lot to do in the kitchen,” Mother replied.
Yoyne was freshly shaved, yet the green dusting that shadowed his face was more conspicuous than ever. His face was creased. His Adam’s apple, which overnight seemed to have become more pointy, kept bobbing up and down, like a scurrying mouse. He ate with his eyes glued to the plates. Between courses, he broke off pieces of matzo and chewed them absentmindedly.
Mother watched him out of the corner of her eye. He must have been aware of her anxious gaze because he lifted his head and began turning his neck from side to side, as if he were being choked by a tight collar.
That wasn’t the way things were last year at our holiday table. Today, after we finished eating and hastily mumbled the Grace after Meals, everyone got up abruptly from the table. Last year, I remembered, we didn’t move from our places. Father began humming a familiar, plaintive melody, and Mother quietly joined in, humming along in her clear, pearly voice. Today, immediately after the meal, Yoyne picked up his cane, tugged at his tie, and went out.
“A cane on the holiday?” Father called after him. “It’s forbidden to carry on the holiday.”
But Yoyne was already outside. Through the window I caught a glimpse of him as he pranced out of the courtyard, twirling his cane in the air.
Ite was washing up. Seething with rage, she seemed to put all her furious energies into the dogged scrubbing of the pots and pans. The house was filled with aromas—chopped onions and eggs, put-away borsht, fried matzo pancakes—inducing a drowsiness that was hard to resist. Eyelids kept drooping. Father didn’t wait long to surrender and lay down, fully dressed, under the featherbed. His thick beard, which all Passover week had retained its trim, well-mannered look, now pointed every which way at the ceiling. In less than two minutes, the room resounded with the gasps of Father’s heavy breathing.
Mother paced restlessly around the room. I knew why. She wanted either to conceal something or else to blurt it out. She picked up an object from the dresser and put it right back. She pulled out a drawer and pushed it back in again. She opened the window.
“It’s so stuffy in here,” she said, fixing her eyes on me. “Mendl,” she swept her hand across the table, “why don’t you go for a walk?”
“Where should I go?”
“Do I have to tell you where to go? Don’t you have any friends?”
“Of course, I have. Who says I haven’t?”
“So why don’t you go find them? A young boy like you should be out shooting nuts. Isn’t that what boys do on Passover?”
“I don’t have any nuts for any games.”
“Is that all that’s the matter? Here, now you have nuts.”
Mother produced a large paper bag and filled my pocket with nuts until it bulged. When did Mother ever give me so many nuts? And if that wasn’t enough, she added two macaroons and a piece of candied orange peel.
“Nu, get going!” she placed her hands on my shoulders.
“I have nowhere to go,” I said, “I’ll wait for Father to wake up and go with him to visit Aunt Naomi.”
“Aunt Naomi can wait,” Mother said angrily. “It’s such a beautiful day, and all you can think of is to stay home!”
Mother must have been deeply troubled, otherwise she wouldn’t have spoken to me like that. Even in the most difficult of times, on cold winter evenings, when there was no wood in the house for the stove, Mother never spoke to me in this way. She must really be in the grip of some terrible sorrow. I think that’s why I was so reluctant to go out. I didn’t want to leave Mother alone.
But eventually Mother had her way, that is, she simply pushed me outside. Ite never said a word. She kept on scrubbing the pots and pans even more doggedly, with even greater vigor and fury.
Only when I was out the door did it dawn on me why Mother was so eager to be rid of me. She wanted to be alone with Ite to find out more. I stationed myself between the open window and the door. Presumably, no one could see me.
On the roof across the way, pigeons were strutting proudly to and fro, their puffed-up breasts jiggling steadily. From time to time, one of the pigeons spread its wings, flew around the roof, and swooped back down again. Suddenly, all the little heads quivered in unison, each pigeon’s eyes fixed on its fellows’, and, as if by royal command, the entire flock took to the air with a great flapping of wings, like a swirl of snowflakes glinting in the sun.
I looked up to follow their flight. They circled about in one spot, up and down, like members of a devoted, close-knit family. If one pigeon happened to get separated from its companions, it immediately flew back to rejoin the flock, quivering with joy. How different, I thought, was all this from what was going on at home. At a time when we should have been at our happiest, on Passover, the most beautiful holiday of the year, our joy was disturbed.
While I was watching the pigeons, I heard Ite’s choked voice through the open window.
“Auntie, dear Auntie! I swear on my life!”
“You don’t have to swear, Ite!” I heard Mother say, her voice deep and heavy. “I want to know the truth.”
“It’s the whole truth, Auntie. That’s what happened. We arranged to meet at a spot in the woods, he and I. We were only going for a walk … We talked about Warsaw, about Lodz, but later, when it got dark, he wanted to …”
What he wanted, I never did manage to find out. Just then, Mother stuck her head out the window, and let out a shriek.
“Why are you standing there like an idiot? Go somewhere, for heaven’s sake.”
The open window slammed shut with a bang. The pigeons flew in low circles around the roof. Mother’s angry words made me feel as if I’d just been scalded, driving me from the courtyard. I didn’t know whether Mother was coming after me or had remained inside. I looked around, no one was chasing me. Nevertheless, I ran as fast as my legs could carry me. At that moment I was desperate to find someone, anyone, to shoot nuts with, to talk to, to do something with, anything.
I don’t know how it happened, but suddenly I found myself standing in front of our former house, where Moyshe had died and from which we had long been gone. It seemed to me that I might find Jusza there. I had something to tell her. I felt my face growing hot, my fingers and hands as well.
I knew that Jusza no longer lived there. All the same, I peeked through our old window, now lined with flower pots. Gentiles must be living there now. It all seemed so strange, Gentiles in our old house. The door opened, our very door. A young shikse, a blond Gentile girl, appeared in the doorway, holding a piece of twisted white bread, like our Sabbath loaf, in her hand.
This wasn’t right. I couldn’t bear to look! How could anyone be eating bread so openly? After all, it was still Passover, when all leaven is forbidden!
The young girl bent her head to one side, took the bread from her mouth, and looked at me.
“Who are you looking for?”
“For Jusza.”
“I’m not Jusza. I’m Stasza. And what’s your name?”
“Mendl.”
“Do you want to play?
“Alright, but throw away that piece of bread, it’s khomets.”
“What? Today’s Easter, when you eat kulich, that’s what this is.”
“By us it’s Passover, when you can’t eat any bread.”
“My mother told me that you zhidkes, you Jews, mix your matzos with our blood.”
“Your mother’s an old fool!”
“And you’re a zhidek!”
“You’re a shikse!”
“And you’re a louse-head!”
“Louse-head yourself!”
The girl stepped backward into the doorway. I took a step forward.
We eyed each other warily, like two dogs. The entrance into the house was familiar to me; after all, we used to live here. I also knew the way to the attic, where, as I remembered, a Russian soldier would occasionally drop by to see Jusza, stomping up the stairs so heavily that it made our ceiling shake.
I wanted to tell Stasza all this. I wanted to tell her that we should go up to the attic. But she was already standing at the door, her hand on the handle.
“Scram, you zhidek!” She kicked her foot at me, turned, and yanked open the door.
I wasn’t sure, maybe I just imagined it. Maybe I wasn’t seeing right, but just then I had a vision of Jusza’s black, wooly head.
“Jusza!” I called out, in a voice not my own.
From inside the house a shrill echo resounded, “Mama, a zhid’s come here to murder us!”
I never got to see the particular mother, Jusza neither. I ran with all my might out of the courtyard, into the street, this way and that, wherever my legs carried me. Only when I reached the old park did I come to a halt. No one was chasing me.
Cold shafts of light filtered through the branches of the trees. Bridegrooms were strolling with their brides. All the brides were bedecked in gold trappings and walked with proud steps, their high heels clicking.
If only I could say to them … no, not say … shout, “Stop that clicking!”—a heavy stone would have rolled off my heart.
It took a long while before I stopped panting. I made no effort to understand all that had happened to me in so short a time. All I knew was that I ought to feel guilty, but I wasn’t sure to whom. I came home in a state of dread, feeling that I must somehow apologize.
Ite was no longer in the house. Father had gotten up from his nap. He was waiting for me.
“Where were you?” he asked the moment I crossed the threshold.
“In the old park.”
“Why the old park? What business do you have there?”
“I was shooting nuts.”
“Nuts, you say. A boy your age still playing with nuts?”
“I told him to,” Mother answered for me.
“In the old park, with all those hooligans?”
“There were no hooligans there,” I tried to get a word in edgewise.
“That you were there at all is enough for me!”
My face started burning afresh. Father had never spoken to me like that before. What did I do to deserve this?
“In my opinion,” Mother broke in, “you shouldn’t take him with you to Aunt Naomi’s today.”
“Why not?”
“Can’t you see how he’s dressed?”
“Well, he’s not, God forbid, in rags.”
I myself didn’t feel like going to Aunt Naomi’s that day. I wasn’t my usual self. Suddenly, I was overcome by a feeling of terrible laziness. All I wanted to do was to lie down and get warm.
True, if we didn’t go to Aunt Naomi’s today, we’d have to wait another whole half-year, until the Sukkoth holiday. I would have preferred that rather than letting them see my flushed and guilty face. But Father insisted.
“What do you mean not go visit Aunt Naomi?” he said. “What would she say?”
“Go alone,” mother suggested.
“No, I won’t go alone.”
So, we went there again, Father and I, as we had done the year before.
When my face wasn’t flushed, and no heavy stone weighed on my heart, visiting Aunt Naomi wasn’t so terrible. She was unlike all my other aunts, and so was her way of life.
Aunt Naomi lived in a two-story brick structure with a wide iron staircase. There were two other residents in the building, Doctor Pryzłencki and a Gentile teacher.
When you climbed up the iron staircase and entered the cold, dimly lit hall, you heard a strange, hollow echo. The door to Aunt Naomi’s place was tall and brown, with a brass handle. It must have been because of that brass handle that Mother so disliked her sister-in-law, for she rarely ever visited her over the holidays.
“I had brass door handles once, too,” Mother often reminded us, “but I certainly didn’t give myself airs like Naomi.”
I don’t know whether, in Mother’s old house with those brass door handles, you also had to press a button before being admitted. At Aunt Naomi’s you had to wait a while at the wide front door. Someone would first ask, “Who is it?” and only then did they let you in.
Whenever we set out to visit Father’s only, and exalted, sister, on the way over he would hum a little melody, with different variations from half-year to half-year. As soon as he arrived at her door, he’d blow his nose, cough, and only then slowly press the button. When the door finally opened, he would walk in, taking big strides as if to say, “I may not be a rich man, but I’m your brother, and I’m as good as you are, my dear sister.”
That was certainly the case. As youngsters, both he and Naomi used to run around together, naked and barefoot in their village’s dairy and feast on rye bread and cottage cheese. Both had looked across to the same faraway, sunlit fields. Both had bathed in the same river. It was only now that things were different. Now Father lived in one room and a kitchen, whereas Naomi was blessed with many rooms. Father spent a few paltry groshen for Sabbath needs, while Aunt Naomi thought nothing of spending three or four rubles.
Aunt Naomi was tall, dark-skinned, with black, prominent eyebrows, like those of a learned Jew. I disliked her eyes. They were pale, melancholy, shifty. Nor did I like Aunt Naomi’s way of speaking. Her words didn’t flow readily but were doled out sparingly. They were filtered slowly through her thin lips, in a kind of drawl.
“Ley-ze-e-er …” she said, “a good holiday to you and a good year … How are you? … Is that so? … Mmm … Blessed be His dear name … And is that really your Mendl?”
As she drawled out the words, “Blessed be His dear name,” she half-closed her eyes in an expression of bliss and shook her head the way a rabbi’s wife might.
Her dark figure, her pointy chin, her very height, all fit well with the spacious, cool rooms, where human voices bounced from corner to corner before coming to a resolution. It seemed that only such walls, such dark tables and chests of drawers, suited a person like Aunt Naomi. Anywhere else, under a low ceiling, for instance, or within warmer walls, Aunt Naomi would have been out of place. However, it was somewhat of a mystery how her husband, Uncle Bentsien, fitted in with the surroundings.
He himself was short, round, and fat. The feet God had given him were tiny, not very manly, and his hands were small and pudgy. His only distinguished feature was a white beard. His ample paunch protruded with a rich man’s audacity.
Uncle Bentsien never wore boots but black, highly polished shoes with elastic sides. His trousers, too, were black, always pressed and with sharp creases down the front. When it came to choosing a kapote, he pondered long and hard, discussing the matter with his wife, and finally picked one that was a bit shorter and trimmer than the usual such garment. That is to say, it could be regarded as suitable for someone who considered himself to be both somewhat enlightened and still somewhat pious. Why “somewhat pious”? Because he couldn’t yet pluck up the courage to sally forth wearing the fedora of the fully enlightened. At home, therefore, he wore a silk, eight-sided skullcap, and when he went out he put on a felt hat with a narrow crown and a brim edged in silk braid.
Uncle Bentsien waddled on his short legs like a duck, taking tiny, womanish steps. Jews, seeing him in the street, would greet him with a “Good morning.” Whenever he passed a Gentile acquaintance, he would doff his hat. Uncle Bentsien was a respected personage in the town. He knew what was going on in every Jewish household, who was getting married, which woman was in labor, which husband and wife were divorcing, who had died. Uncle Bentsien knew everything.
It was only to be expected, therefore, that Uncle Bentsien should be a leader in the Jewish community, serving as secretary of the community council. Who, for instance, could be seen going into the office of the city administrator, stepping with such confidence? Bentsien, the secretary of the Jewish community. Who could be found running every Monday and Thursday to the district governor or to the military commander? Uncle Bentsien. And who walked in such brotherly closeness on the street with the rabbi, if not Uncle Bentsien?
It was a matter of great honor for Father and me that Bentsien, the secretary of the Jewish community, was my uncle and Father’s own brother-in-law. It was also a matter of pride for me that Uncle Bentsien occupied a place of honor in the main synagogue, praying at the eastern wall with all the other dignitaries, next to the rabbi, and that, after the service, he walked home with the cantor, with the synagogue trustee Ruvele Beckerman and other worthies.
Father and I prayed in the study house, the besmedresh, and walked home afterward with Motl Straw or with Moyshele the hatmaker. It therefore gave us much pleasure when Uncle Bentsien would suddenly show up in our little study house, just before the reading of Torah, on one of the holidays or on a Sabbath marking the new month.
When these visits occurred, everyone knew that there had to be a purpose, that Bentsien wouldn’t just drop in to the besmedresh for no reason at all. Surely, he was bringing us some important news from the greater world. So, of course, people took notice and pricked up their ears. Prayer shawls came off shrouded heads, little boys were lifted onto window sills and tables.
Bentsien’s rich-man’s paunch pushed its way to the pulpit. His white, well-trimmed beard gazed down on the expectant, sober faces. Yekhiel-Sane, the elderly sexton, banged on the table with abandon, “Sha-a! Silence!”
A hush fell over the besmedresh. I, too, climbed up on a table. After all, this was my Uncle Bentsien!
Uncle Bentsien looked around slowly, taking in all four sides of the room, and, even more ponderously, delivered the world news he had brought with him.
“I am here to announce, on behalf of the rabbi and on behalf of the community council,” he declaimed in a grating voice, “that you can now register your children in the Talmud Torah elementary school every day from noon until evening, except Fridays and Saturdays.”
So, it wasn’t such big world news after all. The little boys were soon being lifted back down from the tables. Someone at the eastern wall tossed his prayer shawl back over his head and mumbled into his open prayer book, “N-n-a … some news indeed!”
Be all that as may, the news that Uncle Bentsien announced was important and people listened attentively. It meant that poor mothers, widows, alas, and abandoned wives were given notification about enrolling their children in the tuition-free elementary school maintained by the community.
Now, on the last days of the Passover holiday, here I was sitting in the high-ceilinged, dark rooms of that same Uncle Bentsien. Aunt Naomi sat close by Father’s side. She knew that her brother was somewhat hard of hearing. Uncle Bentsien didn’t know this, or else pretended not to know. He sat at the other end of the room, his small barrel of a body squeezed into a soft armchair, from which his short legs dangled like little logs of wood. He was wearing his eight-sided, silk skullcap, cracking nuts, dipping fruit pits into a glass of mead, and peeling oranges. All the while, he kept looking at me.
What had Uncle Bentsien noticed about me? Why was he smacking his lips after every sip of mead? And, above all, why was he crinkling his nose like that? Was it because Father couldn’t afford to buy me new clothes for Passover and that I had come here in my weekday kapote? Mother was right. How could I show myself at Uncle Bentsien’s in such a worn garment? I was ashamed in front of my uncle and aunt, ashamed to be sitting in that beautiful, rich house. But most of all, I was ashamed because of Mendl.
My aunt and uncle had a Mendl too, both of us having been named after the same grandfather. Only this Mendl was older and better looking than me. He took after Aunt Naomi and had the same small, narrow mouth. When he talked, his mouth crinkled to one side, like his mother’s. I always felt that the reason he crinkled his mouth was because he thought himself to be so high and mighty.
As it happened, Mendl was right to hold himself in such exalted regard. He wore a white shirt and a tie, as well as long trousers, reaching to below his low, laced boots. He didn’t attend a Hebrew school, a kheyder, like me, but studied in a shkole, a Russian-Jewish school. He was free to roam through all the big rooms of his house, and he could ask for anything he wanted. He had no brothers or sisters. He was an only child.
But all that counted for nothing. There were many good-looking, rich Mendls in our town, living in spacious houses. But none of the other Mendls had a singing voice as beautiful as his.
The word in town was that Bentsien’s Mendl was something special and that the world would one day be hearing from him. Everybody in town was aware that Bentsien’s Mendl could read and write as fluently as running water, that he knew whole chapters of the Bible by heart. So, why shouldn’t I feel poor and insignificant in comparison to such a Mendl, for whose sake elderly Jews would run from the besmedresh to the shul just to hear him sing?
I, too, always raced to hear him. Mendl was the soloist in the boys’ choir that accompanied the old Lithuanian cantor. His angelic tones rang out from under the arched, blue ceiling of the shul like a voice from heaven. Sometimes, when he sang in a haunting tremolo, it seemed as if all the flutes and clarinets, all the trumpets and fiddles that were carved into the eastern wall, came to life and joined in.
Now I was sitting as a guest in their home. Mendl looked at me as though I were a stranger. He knew who I was. Didn’t I come here every six months? Yet he made as if he didn’t recognize me. He crinkled his little mouth to one side and never said a word to me. I would have liked to start a conversation, but how to begin if the other person doesn’t even acknowledge your presence?
Aunt Naomi had a request.
“Mendlshi,” she cajoled, “sing something for Uncle Leyzer.”
Mendl looked up with a pair of eyes as large and as pale as his mother’s and shrugged. It was not hard to figure out what he meant by that gesture: “Tell me, really, is there anybody here worth singing for?”
Father smiled at him. “Nu … yes … Sing something, Mendl. I sometimes hear you in the shul, but only when I can manage to push my way in …”
Mendl drew his small mouth even tighter. He half-closed his eyes and assumed a dreamy expression. He was actually going to sing! I held my breath. A large, warm smile spread across Father’s face. Aunt Naomi closed her eyes, too, just like her son, and assumed the same expression. Only Uncle Bentsien was oblivious, as he loudly slurped the last drops of mead from his glass and folded both hands across his stomach.
But Mendl didn’t sing. Instead, he walked slowly and stiffly into the next room.
The smile vanished from Father’s face. I let out my breath. Aunt Naomi wrinkled her forehead and tracked her son’s departure with sorrowful eyes.
But a few minutes later, Mendl’s voice resounded from the next room. He was singing! Father’s lips curled with pleasure. The worried wrinkles on Aunt Naomi’s brow turned into creases of joy.
“May I never meet with misfortune, dear God in Heaven!” she nodded her head. “He sings, may he be protected from the evil eye, just like a bird in the forest.”
I, personally, had no idea how a human being could sing like a bird in the forest. But listening to Mendl, I found myself moved to the quick. His voice was as sweet as the best honey. He was incomparable. I now understood that he had every reason to feel high and mighty. If I were in his place, I would have felt the same way.
By now the room was growing dark. We sat there like invalids who are afraid to move lest it aggravate their pain. The glasses of mead stood in the shadows, forgotten. Mendl’s melodious voice hung in the air, yes, like a bird in the forest. I could almost hear it fluttering its wings.
Such marvelous singing, such a marvelous boy, that Uncle Bentsien’s Mendl! I was sated with mead and candied orange peel. Still, I felt hungry and depressed, all because of Mendl’s marvelous, melodious voice.
Father was speaking to me, but I didn’t answer.
When all was said and done, who was I compared to Mendl? A speck of dust, mere chaff in the wind. Father couldn’t even afford to buy me new clothes for the holiday, whereas the other Mendl went about dressed like a prince. Even his voice was princely. I, on the other hand, loitered in strangers’ courtyards. I dealt with people like Jusza and Hodl. I was a boor, an ignoramus. At that moment I couldn’t have wished for anything better than to hear that Mendl had taken ill and had to have his vocal cords removed. Then I would have been able to love him and make him my best, my only, friend. I would have told him about the pigeons on the roof, about Jusza, about Ite, about Yoyne. There were many other things I would have told him, too. But now I couldn’t say anything.
From Aunt Naomi’s we went straight to the besmedresh. It was time for the evening service. On this occasion, Moshke the cantor spun out his military marches in so dry and monotonous a tone that it made my ears throb. I prayed for the service to end so that I could lie down, bury my face in the pillow, and cry. All I wanted to do was cry my heart out.
Back home, Father never gave me a second thought. He reported on the wonders of his sister Naomi, on our gracious reception, on Mendl’s mellifluous voice.
I noticed that Mother screwed up her face. I don’t think she much liked hearing what Father was telling her. I could have sworn that Father’s account made her unhappy.
“Enough!” she waved her hand impatiently. “We’ve already heard all about her good fortune.”
I was very grateful to Mother, thankful with all my heart. What a dear human being she was, always taking my side, always sympathizing with my grievances.
Father fell silent. Suddenly everything in the room was silent. Ite was setting the table. Her face looked pinched and angry, with ugly red blotches. Mother had changed out of her holiday clothes. She looked upset and grief-stricken.
“And where is that son of yours?” Father asked before we sat down to the table.
“He won’t be here today,” Mother snapped back.
Ite hurried into the kitchen. Father crinkled his eyes.
“What do you mean? It’s time to make kiddush, to sanctify the wine.”
“You can do it without him.”
“I don’t understand.”
“What don’t you understand? He’s not here, and that’s that. He’s been invited to Aunt Miriam’s.”
“Is that so? Mmm …”
We sat down to the table without Yoyne. Again, Ite didn’t join us. We ate in silence.
Yoyne never came back to sleep, nor did he show up the next morning. Ite moved about the house incessantly, her cheeks still aflame, cleaning, washing, polishing.
At the close of the holiday, in the evening, when the Passover dishes were being stored for another year, and the everyday dishes put back in place, Mother went out, taking with her Yoyne’s little, peeling suitcase. Ite sat by the window, worn out from her labors, staring into the darkness.
Father had also gone out, to see his partner, Motl Straw. The house was bleak, without Mother, without Father, without Yoyne. I wandered around the empty house like an orphan. I had the feeling that I would never see Mother again, though she did return late that night without Yoyne and without his little suitcase.
I now had the iron bed all to myself.