ROSH HASHANAH ARRIVES without fanfare. It’s Jewish custom to dunk apples in honey and make wishes for the New Year. Degan and I wish for world peace, for Obama to win.
“I wish to have our baby back,” I say.
Degan squeezes my hands. “I wish, God,” he says, “for you to accompany our baby wherever it will be.”
But where will it be? Who will take care of it after the warmth of my womb? I think of my little dreamer with the big fish eyes. If there is a heaven—which I don’t think there is—but if there is one, my baby is in the same place as Vera’s lost daughter, little Eva. With Gumper, and Granny’s parents. With Granny herself.
Maybe my great-grandmother Marianne is taking care of our child. Draping a wing over her little shoulder.
My heart hurts as I look at the little bowl of honey I’ve set out, the apple pieces slowly going brown. I picture small hands dipping and young voices laughing, the silly wishes a young child would make. I picture Eva, with her halo of wild curls.
I’m grateful, though, that we have somewhere to go for the first night of the holiday. Last year at this time I did not know the meaning of Rosh Hashanah, let alone have anyone to celebrate with. This year, Aaron and Sylvie’s invitation was so warm that in a fit of boldness, I have asked whether my parents could join us, as well.
“Do we dress up?” Mum emails to ask.
I don’t really know.
“I’ll wear a jacket,” Dad says.
“I guess it’s like Christmas dinner,” I say.
Mum nods. This she understands.
I email Sylvie to ask how I can help; she requests we bring a vegetable dish. I cook a sweet potato casserole from the cookbook Shayna gave us for our wedding. The relief at knowing what’s appropriate to bring. My stomach flutters when I picture my parents at home in Kitchener, Mum putting earrings on, Dad straightening his tie.
I head over early to help Sylvie set up. The hall walls are covered with photos of her father, a famous opera singer, in Tosca, Madama Butterfly, Don Giovanni. I think of Degan’s opera tickets, produced at the same time as the news of the pregnancy, and squeeze my eyes shut against the tide of feeling. The Filipina maid mistakes me for more hired help, tapping me on the shoulder and directing me briskly to where the silverware is kept. When she realizes her mistake, she flushes. “I’m sorry,” she says. “Welcome.”
In the dining room the second life-sized maid, the one made out of papier mâché, has been removed.
An hour later the doorbell rings. It’s the Hamburger King and his son who dated Monica Lewinsky. We smile, say hello. The bell rings once more and I hear my parents’ voices in the front hall. “Good to see you again,” Aaron says to Dad. “The last time was at your father’s yahrzeit.” Stating this for the benefit of the other guests. I want to run and bury my face in Dad’s chest, to curl up in his arms like a little girl.
Mum, absent at the yahrzeit, is introduced around. She hands Sylvie a bouquet of irises, a bottle of red wine. “Hi, sweetie,” she says casually as she hugs me hello.
I can see they have no idea how symbolic the evening feels from my perspective, or how emotionally exhausting the anticipation has been. But she knows, of course, about the miscarriage, and her touch is especially gentle.
“Well,” Dad says loudly, to the growing gathering, “this is one of the most stressful days of my life.”
Everyone stops talking; people shift their eyes nervously.
“Because it’s your first Rosh Hashanah?” I ask tentatively.
“Haven’t you seen the papers? Congress didn’t approve the bailout plan. The economy is tanking. As we speak. Now! And now! And now!”
There are murmurs of agreement.
“You would not believe how much money I’ve lost today,” he says, his forehead in his hands. Then he looks up at the room full of strangers. “We need a fiscally prudent budget,” he booms. “And for that we need a majority government.”
The election is coming up, and Dad wants everyone to vote for our current prime minister, Stephen Harper, who he believes is our only economic hope.
I wince at how this might be received, since his politics are so different from my own and so different, I am certain, from everyone else’s in the room, but the moment passes and the chatting guests shift positions. We move to the table, set with cut crystal and white linen tablecloths. There are the usual blessings, the bread and the wine, and a blessing over the honey and apples. And the Shehechiyanu, which is the blessing for firsts, because it’s the New Year. We dig into the meal: the same clear chicken broth in glass bowls, this time with a matzah ball floating in the centre. I watch my father divide his in half with his spoon. He starts telling the Hamburger King about his background. “I was one of those Jews whose parents didn’t tell the kids they were Jewish,” he says.
“After the war?” the Hamburger King asks.
Dad nods yes. “We’ve never been to Israel.”
The King raises his eyebrows. “How would you identify yourself?”
“Religiously?”
A nod.
Dad pauses. “Well,” he says. “I was raised Christian. All my religious experience is with Christianity. But truly? In my heart, I know I’m a Jew.”
It is as though someone has struck a gong from his corner of the table. My eyes widen. His comment rings in my ears throughout the rest of the meal, so I can barely hear what anyone else is saying. When Degan and I get up to clear the plates, he whispers to me in the kitchen, “Your father is Jewish.”
“I know,” I say. “Weird.”
Over dessert, Sylvie confirms again that very few Jews were able to get into Canada in 1941.
Dad says, “How many? Fifty?”
Sylvie says, “I’d put it lower.”
The Lady Boat that brought Granny and Gumper to Canada was torpedoed on its way back to Europe. I am here, in this world, by luck alone.
Degan and I have a big fight when we get home. I’m sad about the baby and wrung out from the visceral stress of the evening. I ask why he hasn’t returned the emails from the real estate agent. “Can’t you see how hard I’m trying here?” he says, his voice tight.
“It’s just one tiny email. It would take you two minutes.”
“I’m doing my best,” he shouts. “This is hard for me, too.”
“What’s hard for you?”
He glares at me.
“Do you think the baby was just yours? That I’m not sad, too?”
He’s right, but his yelling scares me. I close myself in the bathroom and sit on the toilet with my head between my knees, crying. For the lost baby. For our lost history and rituals. The night was so momentous. My father celebrated Rosh Hashanah and labelled himself Jewish. It seems something more is called for now, some acknowledgement or marking, but I’m lost. I slink upstairs to sleep alone, but Degan follows me. “Don’t be like that,” he says.
He holds me, and I cry.
Later, although it’s forbidden due to the chag—“holiday”—I turn on the computer. My cousin Lucy has written “L’Shana Tova” on my Facebook wall. Her message is there for everyone to see. I feel the old terror of being revealed for who I am, or worse, for who I hope to become.
Dad, for his part, seems unfazed. He has sent an email thanking us for including him in the holiday. “I enjoyed it very much. The people were very warm. There’s just one thing I wish had been different.” A beat. “I wish there had been more reading from the holy texts.”