Hush (2 page)

There were three families living in our white corner house: the Proukses, the Kreigers, and my family, the Kleins. The Kreigers were just another boring Orthodox Jewish family. But Kathy and Leo Prouks, who lived on the third floor of the house, were Christian, and everyone said Kathy was strange—even for a gentile. She had had a nervous breakdown ten years ago—or maybe twenty—and she had been different ever since.

Kathy had been living in the small attic apartment with her tall, silent husband, Leo, since just about when Hashem created the world. When my father bought the white house on the corner of East Tenth Street twenty years earlier, they’d already been living there, and they planned to live there forever.

Kathy was taller than my mother and had bright red hair that swung all over her pudgy face. She had small, deep hazel eyes, whose color, she said, smiling mysteriously, matched the dark grass that grew only on the moon.

My mother told us that she would never forget when the ambulance arrived to take Kathy away. She was screaming like a madwoman and the paramedics had to tie her, kicking and crying, to a chair. When she returned a week later, she was smiling and calm as if nothing had ever happened. My mother had wanted her to move out of the apartment, but her husband had cried and begged my parents and convinced them that she was harmless.

But I liked Kathy just the way she was. She was the only adult I knew who was still a child, and she never lied, which all adults did.

Kathy Prouks was my first real secret. Nobody in my class knew that there was an actual gentile living in my very own house, and I dared not tell them. Only Devory Goldblatt, my best friend since forever, knew about her, and she claimed that Kathy wasn’t a real gentile because she was so kind. She always had special kosher candies for us, and she said that being Jewish was beautiful.

Devory was my almost-neighbor. She lived just three and a half blocks away from me, on the Jewish side of the bridge, and we had always imagined that we were twins. We were born on the same day in the same hospital, and my mother said that we were both so ugly they couldn’t tell us apart. Then she would laugh and say, “Oh, but you two were best friends from the day you were born.”

Devory and I looked nothing alike. My mother said she was a blue-eyed skinny shrimp with stick-straight blond hair scattered in every direction on her head. Mommy called me a second version of Aunt-Leah-who-
nebech
-died-in-the-Holocaust. I disagreed. I had studied the ancient picture of Aunt Leah, and she was fat and plain and had ugly brown hair. I was chubby, average/cute, and had long, smooth hair I wore in a high pony. I also had chocolate eyes, which certainly were not the ordinary brown my mother remembered of she-who-had-
nebech
-died-in-the-Holocaust. I showed Devory the grainy picture when I went over to her house, and she agreed that definitely I was the prettier one.

Devory’s house was small, but it housed eight children in three bedrooms and had three blades of grass in the front. The inside of the house was old and worn but clean, the smell of Windex and fresh chicken soup filling every room.

Devory’s family was poor. Her father was a
maggid shiur
—a Torah scholar—who taught boys in
yeshiva
, and her mother was a high school
chumash
teacher in the
Yushive
school. They did not have money, my mother said, but they were a holy family because Devory’s father was a great man who studied Torah many hours every day.

Devory thought my family was rich. We had a cleaning lady once a week, three entire bathrooms, marble floors, and fresh roses in flowerpots in every room. I did not know if we were truly rich, but Devory was jealous of my house and its five large bedrooms and nice furniture. I told her not to worry. She could live in my house anytime she wanted, so it was really half hers.

Our mothers had been close friends since high school, and they had almost all their babies at the same time. My seventeen-year-old sister, Surela, and Devory’s sister Miriam were in the same class. So were my fifteen-year-old brother, Yossi, and Devory’s brother Shmuli, who were both away in
yeshiva
. Then came my thirteen-year-old brother, Leiby, and Devory’s sister Leah’la, who were a year apart; Avrum and Tzvi, who were both eleven; and Devory and me, who were eight. Six-year-old Sruli was the youngest in my family, but Devory had twin sisters who were five and then Chana’la, the baby, who was a year old. I told my mother it was unfair we didn’t have twins, but she just laughed, then sighed in relief and said it was all up to Hashem.

Family Goldblatt was a prestigious family because they were related to all sorts of important
Rebbes
. The family connections were rather confusing, but the crucial matter is that the Goldblatts were related somehow or other to the
Yushive Rebbe
’s family, and whoever is related—even distantly—to the
Yushive Rebbe
’s family is very important no matter how much money they have. When Mr. Goldblatt went to the
Rebbe
for a blessing, he—along with every descendant of the past seven generations—got the front place in the line.

Besides all this, Devory was a genius. Everybody said so. She read too much for her own good, and she had the brains of the
Yushive Rebbe
. It was too bad she was a girl so she couldn’t be a
Rebbe
, but she could certainly be a big teacher.

Devory and I walked home from school together almost every day. Often she came over to my house and we’d play in my big backyard and climb our cherry tree whenever my mother wasn’t around. My mother had forbidden us to go near that thing after she had seen Devory dangling from a thick branch by one thin arm and said that one day that girl would kill herself acting like that, and what did she think she was anyways, a rag doll?

We were also fascinated by the witch’s house on the corner; it was pointy and brown and hundreds of years old. Tovah, my neighbor who lived right across the street from that house, had told me that Mrs. Yutzplats, the last living witch of the world, lived there, and Tovah knew all about witches. Almost every Sunday Devory and I would go to Tovah’s and sit on her steps to spy on Mrs. Yutzplats.

Tovah was my sometimes-sort-of-good-friend. It wasn’t my fault. She was very sensitive and was always getting insulted about something or other. Maybe it was because she was more modern and wore knee socks that covered only half her leg, instead of tights or stockings that covered the entire leg, like we did.

Tovah didn’t go to a
Chassidish
school like we did. Her father didn’t wear any hat during the week, and on
Shabbos
he wore a fancy black hat from the 1970s. Her mother covered her hair at home with a snood, leaving one whole inch of her hair showing in the front. My mother, who tucked every last strand of hair into her turban when she took off her wig, strongly disapproved of such behavior. She said that a true married Jewish woman does not show as much as one piece of hair, and that in the Talmud it said Kimchas—a great big
Eishes Chayil
, a Woman of Valor—mothered seven sons who all grew up to be high holy priests because even within the four walls of her home they never saw her hair. Now that was modesty.

Jewish women cover their hair because that’s what the Torah commands. Moses or Hashem or someone had proclaimed that a woman’s hair is
ervah
—forbidden—and must be covered at all times, in all places.

But Tovah was proud of her family, and she would pull at her knee socks, with little pink hearts all over them, and smugly say that we were
nebbe
—nerds—because we had to wear ugly thick tights and outdated clothing. Devory and I stuck out our tongues at her and said that she was modern and would go to
gehenim
—hell—but deep inside I was dying to wear a denim skirt like hers and those cool hooded T-shirts that her mother always bought her.

My mother never bought us hooded T-shirts—they were too fashionable. And we certainly were not allowed to wear any denim. Nobody who was really
Chassidish
did; it was a
goyishe
material that came from the cowboys, and it was against school rules. When I complained to my mother that my clothing was
nebbe
she bought me a new
Shabbos
outfit in Wonderland, but Tovah gave one look and wrinkled her nose.

Devory’s oldest sister, Miriam, had become modern too, even though she was from such an important
Chassidish
family. My sister, Surela, once her good friend, told my mother that Miriam’s style of dress was ruining her name for
shidduchim
. How would her parents find her a match?

I asked Surela what was so terrible about the way Miriam dressed, and she explained to me that a
Yiddishe
girl was supposed to look different and to dress in a way that didn’t attract any attention to her body. Someone who dressed in an immodest fashion was trying to be like the goyim, who cared only for their bodies and neglected their souls.

My mother nodded proudly from the other side of the kitchen. “That doesn’t mean you have to dress in an ugly way,” she explained, sipping coffee, “but with dignity. Fashion is created to bring attention to your body and to disguise what is really important about you.”

My sister sighed. “You know,” she said, pulling her short hair back into a tight pony, “I think it’s that girl who Miriam became friends with—Raisy Berger—she really had a terrible influence on poor Miriam.”

“Yes,” my mother agreed. “The Bergers even get the
New York Times
at home.”

“Raisy was always modern,” Surela said. “And since they became friends”—she waved her hand dismissively in the air—“Miriam totally changed.”

When I tried to explain our style of dress to Tovah the next Sunday, she said that I didn’t know what I was saying, and that Hashem liked her and her socks every bit as much as He liked
Chassidim
and what they wore. She reminded me that her father was a big
Talmud Chacham
who learned much more than mine and that her mother did so many good deeds she would be going straight to heaven much faster than mine, and that we were just a bunch of
Chassidish nebs, NEBS
.

At that moment the Syrian Who Was a Jew at Heart and his dog passed by, and we were silenced. He lived in the middle of the block with his family and their dogs and though they were Y
iden
, they weren’t religious at all. He once casually told my mother that he was a Jew at heart and that was all that really mattered. My brother told me that the Syrian’s family was really pitiful because they didn’t know how to be real Y
iden
. First, they had a dog; second, they wore pants and drove on
Shabbos
; and third, they had a modern, funny Hebrew accent and said things like
“Shabbat Shalom
,
”
instead of “
Gut Shabbos
,” and called their children names like Ya-el and Tehil-lah, while our names were Tzipoiry, Pessie, and Ruchel.

Tovah pointed at the dog and the Syrian Who Was a Jew at Heart and said, “See,
he’s
not going to heaven. They don’t even keep
Shabbos
!” and we stared at him as he walked away.

Dear Devory,

Yesterday was our last day of twelfth grade. Next week is our graduation. So much time has passed since it happened; does it pass in heaven also? Is there day and night and long years or is it just one long forever?

Rebbitzen
Ehrlich, the
Rebbe
’s wife, spoke to us yesterday in the auditorium after lunch. She told us about life after high school and how soon, soon we would be the future mothers and teachers of the next generation of Jewish children. We were already adults and within the next two years, with Hashem’s help, we would all marry husbands who would learn the Torah and dedicate their lives to Hashem. She spoke about our obligation to Jewish continuity and how Hashem would bless us with many children for us to raise in His way. She also discussed
shidduchim
, the marriage market, and the matchmakers who would all start calling. How we must never, ever forget the most important role of women—modesty. She said that it was a problem that ached her heart, how girls leaving high school suddenly start wearing skirts that are only two inches below the knee instead of four. “Why do you think Hashem suddenly doesn’t see?” It was embarrassing how much makeup girls seemed to think they could put on, when a woman’s natural inner beauty was what glowed most of all. And so on. I don’t remember what she said after that. She spoke for too long and I began to think about you.