Dreidels on the Brain (26 page)

Maccabee—Herrmann—didn't look very happy either, and the little water bottle on her cage was empty. I filled it with water from the bottomless oil vase, and thought about Houdini.

In the end, of course, Houdini did not escape. People who have watched the movie about him—which I have now seen five times—think he died while doing the Water Torture Cell, but that's not true. In fact, it was Houdini's strength that killed him. He had built up his stomach muscles so he could withstand any blow, and would sometimes let a spectator punch him, as hard as possible. Houdini always tensed up his muscles beforehand, so that even if someone hit him really hard, all they hurt was their own hand. One day, while Houdini was reading his mail, a college student asked if he could punch him in the stomach. Houdini wasn't really paying attention, but kind of nodded, and before he could tense up his muscles, the guy hit him as hard as he could—a sucker punch. Houdini got appendicitis. He should have gone to the hospital, but he had a big performance that night, of the Water Torture Cell. It was afterward, as he walked through the parking lot, that he collapsed and died.

I hadn't expected the sucker punch either, especially from my grandmother, but I probably should have.

Someone tapped my shoulder. I looked up—it was Not-Esther.

“I found this in a pile of papers on the desk,” she said, holding out an envelope. “Is your name Joel?”

I nodded, taking it, though I didn't want to. Inside were five twenty-dollar bills I did not deserve. My gut hurt.

When the bus finally arrived, it was a crawler, hot and packed, and there was no place to sit, so I stood, right in the center. People gave me dirty looks because I took up so much space with my suitcase and Herrmann's cage. I was getting hungry—I hadn't eaten all day, and all I had with me was rabbit food. The bus stopped at every green light, without fail, sometimes staying two cycles for no apparent reason.

It went like this for about twenty stops until we got to the Fairfax area, where people started to get off. By the time we reached the Farmers Market stop, everyone was gone. Maybe they were going Christmas shopping. Whatever it was, I was glad to have some breathing room. There was a seat open right behind the driver. Though it said
RESERVED FOR ELDERLY AND HANDICAPPED
, I no longer cared, so I took it—the closer to the door, the better.

The next light was green and so, of course, we stopped. And waited. Finally an old man climbed on, walking with a cane and carrying a shopping bag.

Just my luck—elderly
and
handicapped. He had thick glasses and wore a plaid felt hat. It took him forever just to make his way to the bus driver.

“How much is it?” he finally asked, in a thick Eastern European accent.

“Senior citizen? A quarter,” said the bus driver.

“Twenty-five cents?”

“Yeah. A quarter.”

Time, which had been crawling along, came to a complete standstill as he reached into his pocket, pulled out a coin, then dropped it with a clink into the box.

“That's five,” he said. Then, after more fishing in his pocket, he pulled out another coin. “Ten.” A few seconds later, “Eleven . . .”

That was it. I saw my whole life passing before me. I would live and die on that bus, in the shadow of my own failure. I watched the mildew, which seemed to be growing up the window as the light went from green to red, then back to green again. Finally, after the man had put in all his nickels and pennies, the bus driver flipped the lever so the coins dropped, and Mr. Elderly Handicapped began to back up right toward me. He didn't even look—just shuffled backward. Great. A whole bus full of empty seats, and he wanted mine.

I slid toward the window, because if I didn't he might well have sat on my lap. Stuck next to him and feeling
awkward, I stared out the window. Porsche, Ferrari, Cadillac—the cars zipped by. But I could feel the old man staring at me. I scooted even closer to the window, but could still feel his eyes on me. Finally, he tapped me on the shoulder, so I
had
to look at him.

He sat there, his head kind of tilted, and said, “Happy Channukah.”

How did he know? He must have seen my suitcase. I didn't say anything.

“You don't look very happy, young man,” he said. I wanted to get away from him. I'd had enough old people for one day. “So maybe I'll show you something.”

He rummaged around in his shopping bag, and pulled something out, holding it up for me to see. It was an orange. I stared at it.

“Vat do you think?” he finally said.

I shrugged. I had a lot of thoughts; mostly, You're a weirdo, like everyone else I've met today, and everyone in the world, and my family, and my grandmother, and my whole pathetic life, and I don't care about you and your stupid orange, so just let me shrivel up and die in peace. But I didn't say any of that. Instead I said, “I think it's an orange.” Then I looked out the window.

“Yes.” He nodded. “You are right. It is an orange. But vat do you think of it?”

Clearly, he wasn't letting up, so I took the orange, looked it over, and gave it back to him. “What do I think?” Again, I kept my real thoughts to myself. “It says Sunkist, and has a navel, so that means it's seedless. The peel is kind of thick, and a little green in one part, but it's probably orange inside. Basically, though, it's just an orange.”

“Just an orange?” he said, nodding, then looked at it for a long time. I turned away from him again, but I could see his reflection in the window. He was rolling the orange between his hands, almost kneading it. Finally, he spoke again.

“You don't understand, do you?”

Here, at least, I had to agree. I had not a clue as to what he was talking about or why he was bugging me about his stupid orange.

“You know,” he said, “I'm not from around here.”

Duh, I thought.

“I came here after The War.” He squinted at me. “Do you know about The War?”

“Yes,” I said. “We studied it in school.”

“Ah!” he said. “I see. And in this school of yours, did you learn about the place where I spent The War?”

“I don't know.” I shrugged. “Where was that?”

“It was called Auschwitz.”

“Really? Yeah. I've heard of it. There was a picture of it in our
textbook, with a sign that said
WORK W
ILL MAKE YOU FREE
.”

“Yes.” He nodded. “That's right.
Arbeit macht frei.
Tell me—in your book, with the picture, did they say what
color
it was?”

I shrugged again. “Well, the picture was black-and-white. But the place itself was, well, all the colors of a place.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “That is not true. There were no colors. It was black. And white.”

“What do you mean? No place is just black and white.”

“The guards,” he said, “dressed in black, and wore black boots, so shiny, you could see your face in them. And the uniforms they gave us had black and white stripes. Beneath them, our skin was pale white from the lack of light.” Here, he rolled up his shirtsleeve and there were numbers on his arm. “You see these numbers? They have turned blue now, but when they brought me into a little room, where a man with glasses burned them into my skin, they were black.

“Everything was black, white, or gray,” he said. “The sky was gray. And the snow, when it fell, was white, but only for a day. Then the ashes from the smokestacks would turn it gray too. All around was a tall fence, black against the sky.

“The food—I remember the food—was gray. Every day, after roll call, we would stand in a long line, each holding
a black metal bowl, and wait. There, at the front, would be a big barrel, in which they had cooked what they called soup—though you or I would not call it that. It was a few potatoes that had been boiled in a big pot of water until they all but dissolved. It was the color of dirty dishwater, and if you got one small piece of the potato, you were lucky. That was our food for the day.

“But more than hungry, I was cold. Our uniforms were made of paper, and to stay warm, I looked for more paper. That was all we could do. When I found a scrap, I would crumple it into my clothes, or use it to patch the holes in my shoes, so my feet would not freeze.”

Hot as it was on the bus, I felt a shiver down my spine.

“One day as I walked near the fence looking for paper, I noticed, in the gray snow, a piece of newspaper. I picked it up and saw that beneath it, the snow was a bright, pure white. But there was something else in the snow, and I stared at it in wonder. An orange! I looked for a long time because, you see, I had forgotten the color. Can you imagine such a thing, to forget a color? When I realized what it was, I grabbed it, and hid it inside my uniform. When I got back to the barracks I slid it into a hole in the wall.

“That night, as everyone slept, I brought it out. You must understand how hungry I was; I had eaten nothing but potato water for six months. I wanted to devour that
orange, like you might eat an apple, peel and all. But I knew that if I did, I would have nothing.

“Instead, I rolled it between my palms. I felt the texture against my skin, its gentle roundness.” As he spoke, he rolled the orange between his hands. “And then I scraped at the peel with my fingernail, closed my eyes—and inhaled.” He held it up to my nose. The scent was sharp and sweet.

“At that moment,” he went on, “I was carried away. No longer in Auschwitz, I was in a field outside Haifa, in what was then called Palestine. I had a cousin who had moved there before The War. He had written me a letter saying ‘Here, we grow oranges. The smell of their blossoms fills the air, even in winter. It is the smell of freedom.'

“For that moment,” he said, “I was free. When I opened my eyes, I was back in Auschwitz.

“I could not eat the orange—it was too beautiful. I tucked it back in the wall. But every night I took it out, rolling it between my hands, smelling its sweet scent. And, for just a moment, it carried me away.”

I realized I was now holding the orange.

“I told myself I would not eat it until after a particularly bad day. Well, in Auschwitz, you did not have to wait long for such a day. There came a selection. We stood in a long line, a guard at the front with a bayonet, pointing for us to go to the right or the left. Those who
were sent to the right went back to the barracks. Those sent to the left went to the showers, and did not return. When I got to the front of the line, the guard looked at me, then pointed to the right.

“It so happened that it was Hanukkah—I don't know which night. We had no candles, or matches, but that night I gathered those around me, and told them I had something to share. I took the orange from its hiding place, and passed it around. Each one of us rolled it between our hands, scraped its skin, and smelled freedom. When it came back to me, I peeled it—careful not to spill a drop—and handed each person a section. I held mine, closed my eyes, and lifted it to my mouth.

“I will tell you. Nothing before, or since, has tasted so sweet. It was the taste of beauty. Of hope. Of life.

“Afterward, I kept the peel, and smelled it each night as you would Havdalah spices to remember the sweetness of Shabbat.

“Finally, we saw the first signs of spring. The snow began to melt, and there, through the cracks, we saw plants, green with yellow flowers. To the guards they were weeds, but to us, they were a gift of color.

“The war ended. Those of us still alive were liberated. I came here, to America. But that orange—it saved my life.”

As he said these words, the bus came to a stop. Using his
cane for balance, the old man stood up with his grocery bag, holding out his hand. I gave him the orange.

He smiled, then smelled it one more time. “That happened many, many years ago,” he said, “and from then until now, I have not told anyone about it.” Then he handed the orange back to me. “Remember, young man,” he said. “Remember the sweet things in life.”

With those words, he got off the bus.