Hush (5 page)

Kathy stroked my hair. I wept.

“Tell her to leave me alone.”

“Don’t cry like that, Gittel. Come here.…”

“I’m so scared.”

“I know.”

My mother called my name. I could hear the door opening downstairs and her voice screaming for me, trying to find where I was. I sobbed quietly. I did not move from Kathy’s arms. My mother called for me again.

“Gittel? Gittel, where are you?” Finally, the door shut. I would come up with an excuse afterward. She could not know that I was up here.

I cried all the way to school the morning after I decided Kathy must die. I sat in the last seat of the van, where no one liked to sit, and bumped unhappily until we arrived. I didn’t want to kill Kathy. I liked her. And what would her husband say? He really loved her and if she died he wouldn’t be able to kiss her anymore. I was devastated, but I had made my decision. The advantages of Kathy’s death were just too overwhelming, and I was sure she would understand.

I was first to arrive at school that morning and I stood outside the door waiting for Chani. As soon as I saw her traipsing through the swinging doors in the hallway, I ran over and soberly informed her that I had a big secret to tell her and she must follow me to the bathroom now. It was an emergency.

Chani followed eagerly, all the while promising that she had not told anyone of the great secret except only a little to our friend Goldy and someone else and her neighbor, but it didn’t really count because she had sworn them to secrecy so they wouldn’t tell anyone.

I took Chani to the last stall in the students’ bathroom, solemnly closed the door, and then began to cry. I told her that Kathy had died in the middle of the night, and that it turns out, she was a secret Jew after all. She had suddenly become ill at about three in the morning, and an ambulance had come and taken her away. But it was too late. My mother had told me then that Kathy was really a hidden Jew from a thousand years before, and that she had even said the
Shema
before she had died, so all the stuff she did in her life didn’t count anymore. Now that she was a Jew after all, we were not allowed to say any evil things about her.

I was so convincing about Kathy’s tragic demise that I cried as deeply as I had when I lost my bicycle. Chani said that she felt horrible because she had told some terrible things about Kathy to Goldy and she started to cry too. She promised me that she would be my sworn best friend from then on, and she would always give me her snack. She would never, ever tell anyone anything about our deep and dark secret so that I should stop crying already. It was making her too sad.

We both sniffled and snuffled and dabbed at our tears with some crumpled toilet paper. Then, after we had solemnly sworn ourselves to friendship and secrecy forever, we walked out of the bathroom arm in arm, appropriately mournful, so that everyone would ask what had happened.

By the first morning break our deepest and darkest secret was out, and I was the new tragic hero of the fourth grade. Everyone struggled to give me a share of their snacks to secure a position in my new circle of friends. Devory, handing me some tissues, nostalgically reminisced about the warm past in Kathy-the-Secret-Jew’s attic apartment. She said that she had always sensed Kathy was too good to be a goy and now that she was gone, life would never again be the same. Chani did all she could to console me in the face of the terrible tragedy and reassured me from the bottomest of her heart that she had not told anyone, except for a little to Goldy, and Devory, and Leah’la, who had promised not to tell anyone at all, except for Rivky, and Itty, and Roisy, so that I was well assured that nobody knew everything, and that everybody knew a lot of nothing, and it was all enough to maintain a position as queen of the class for at least a week.

After school they all gathered protectively around me as I told them just a little bit about Kathy and how she was really a Spanish descendant of a secret Jewish family from a thousand years before, but she never told anyone because she was afraid of her husband, Leo. But then it suddenly hit me that if she was a secret Jew, I didn’t have to kill her. She could live and be a secret Jew too. But it was too late. She was already quite dead, and now I really couldn’t stop crying. Then I sighed and said that I really could not talk much more now—I must go home quickly and see what was happening with the funeral.

I arrived at home a wiser and richer person. I now held in my immediate possession three bars of chocolate, two fancy lead pencils, and a new pack of Hello Kitty shiny stickers. As soon as I stepped off the van, I tore open the first chocolate bar and munched on it. “Oh well,” I thought stoically to myself, “life must go on, after all.” But then I opened the door to my house and there stood Kathy filled with life in a billowing orange dress, checking through her mail.

She asked me how school was, and for a minute I couldn’t believe that it was actually Kathy. But of course she was alive. In school she was dead, but here she was alive, and I smiled, delighted at the simplicity of it all. I dropped my briefcase right there on the floor and generously offered Kathy a piece of my absolutely kosher chocolate. I then helped her up all forty-one steps, pushing her from behind, and she slowly made her way up the creaking, whining stairs, laughing merrily at my silliness.

Dear Devory,

I could not fall asleep last night. I was scared of you, that you would come again. I sat at my table all night trying to write you a letter. I wanted to tell you how sorry I am about what happened, how so much of it was my fault. But I could not find the words. I could not find the language one needs to apologize to the dead.

I fell asleep at the table while thinking. When I woke up it was dawn. I still would not go to bed. Instead, to pass the time I said the
tehillim
, the entire Book of Psalms. At seven my father walked into the dining room. I did not hear his footsteps I was so engrossed in the prayers. He wanted to know if I was ill, saying prayers so early in the morning. I told him, no, I was only doing the omen needed for an early, good marriage; reciting the entire Psalms for forty days straight. He told me not to worry. Nobody remembered anymore, and I, with my good name and family, would get married in no time at all.

Devory, can the dead hear our prayers? When the words come floating up, do they go straight to Hashem’s sacred domain, or does all of heaven know our desperation?

Your best friend,

Gittel

Kathy and I watched some TV today. We watched a funny show, but in the middle I asked her to stop. I felt guilty, knowing it was wrong to do, especially now before marriage.
Rebbitzen
Ehrlich had warned us on the day of our graduation that we are responsible for all that entered into our minds. And if we allowed impurities in, it would taint our spirituality, impairing our ability to raise children the right way.

We sat quietly on the couch and spoke about Devory. Kathy wanted to know if I ever told anyone what had happened. I told her no.

“What about your friends?” she asked. “You got nice friends. I seen them sometimes, that one with the sweet smile, and that girl with the long pony.”

I told her that we don’t talk about such things.

She wanted to know why. I tried to explain to her. I said, “Because it didn’t happen.”

“They’re scared?”

“They just act like nothing ever happened.”

“But you just tell them it did. Things like that happen everywhere. That’s why there are laws to punish such evil deeds.”

“I promised my parents I wouldn’t.”

“Why’d you promise them?”

“They said I will never get married if anyone knows the truth. Nobody will marry someone who is damaged by seeing such things.”

“Why?”

I told her to stop asking why. There was no why. There was just what was.

Kathy’s eyes crinkled up in that sad way. Then she showed me something. She shuffled to the corner of the tiny living room, moving slowly in her worn pink bunny slippers. On the floor lay a pile of magazines. On top was a small bag. Kathy pulled a notebook out from the bag. “Come sit near me,” she said, holding out the notebook like it was a rare ruby ring. “Ain’t it pretty? I got it in the gift shop by the train station. You could write your own prayers in it. It got flowers and angels on the cover, and pages and pages for when you feel sad or happy or just confused. See—it got an angel on every page. Different kinds.”

But I told her that the angels aren’t Jewish so I couldn’t take the notebook back home or I would have to hide it.

“Angels ain’t Jewish or Christian,” she told me. “They ain’t nothing. They’re just angels.” She still talks like that, with that funny “ain’t.”

But I told her she should look closer. These were gentile angels. “Look, they’re barely dressed. And they don’t have any beards.”

Kathy just laughed. “Oh, angels ain’t gotta be dressed. They ain’t got beards. They live in heaven.”

But I didn’t argue with Kathy. She said it didn’t matter, and the only thing that did was that I go to the police and tell them what had happened because it was a terrible thing to ignore something like that. I told her I couldn’t, that it would be a
Chillul Hashem
.

“What’s that?”

“A transgression of Hashem’s name,” I explained. “We Jews carry Hashem’s name on Earth, and if I brought negative attention to us, Hashem Himself would be ashamed.” I tried to tell her that the goyim would only use the story as a weapon against us. Maybe if I prayed more and repented more it would all go away; that’s what everyone told me after it happened.

“Soon you’ll be eighteen,” Kathy said, sighing. “And doin’ your own stuff.” But I told her that soon when I turned eighteen, I would be married.

“You want to get married?”

“I don’t know,” I said, because it was a funny question to ask.

“It’s nice to get married,” Kathy said to me. “Marriage is for love.”

“No it ain’t—isn’t,” I said. “It’s for children.”

“Children come from love.”

“They come from Hashem’s commandment. He said to produce and multiply.”

She said, “Oh, Gittel…God don’t mean it that way.” She then picked up the remote control and asked me mischievously if I wanted to watch some more TV with her. I told her I must go downstairs.

“Your mother knows you are here?”

I smiled. “Of course not.”

She giggled.

“Don’t tell her,” I said.

“I won’t.”

I liked going up to Kathy. It reminded me of Devory, but in a warm sort of way—like she never really went away but was still cuddled up on the couch right next to me, listening to us talking.

It was December in New York and Chanukah had arrived—a time for miracles and presents. Two thousand years ago Hashem made a miracle, and two thousand years later we still got presents for it. But most of all Chanukah was a time of beauty. It was a time of joyous remembrance of the Jews’ triumphant defeat against the strong, evil Greeks who had tried to destroy Judaism.

In school our class made a big Chanukah sign. My teacher, Miss Goldberg, walked into the classroom one morning holding a stack of shiny gold and black papers, glitter, and glue. She placed the stack of papers on her desk and told everyone to take out their scissors and markers.

“We’re going to make a beautiful poster for Chanukah for the whole school to enjoy,” she announced. “The sign will show all the
Yiddishe
holy things on one side and all the
goyishe
Greek materialistic things on the other side. The gold is for Y
iden
, the black is for goyim. When we are finished we will hang it up in the hallway by the staircase so the whole school can see our artwork.”

There was a titter of excitement. We loved making signs; it got us out of an entire morning of learning. Every year a different class made the same kind of Chanukah sign showing the difference between Y
iden
and goyim. Last year the sixth grade had done the
goyishe-Yiddishe
sign using white and black and it still hung glossy and beautiful in the auditorium.

“Who can tell me some of the items we should put on the
Yiddishe
side?” Miss Goldberg asked. We all raised our hands eagerly.

“A menorah,” Shany screeched excitedly. Miss Goldberg nodded her head.

“A Torah!” Sarah Leah said.

“
Tzeddakah! Tzeddakah
!” Chani offered breathlessly.

“Excellent,” Miss Goldberg said. “Now what about the
goyishe
side? Who can tell me what goes there?”