Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress (11 page)

“I want to be Mary,” said Samantha.

“Me too,” said Courtney and Serena.

“Me too,” said Molly. “Definitely Mary.”

“I want to be Mary, too,” I said.

All the girls stopped and looked at me.

“Augh,” Courtney rolled her eyes. “You’re so stupid! You can’t be Mary.”

“You shouldn’t even be in the Christmas pageant,” said Samantha. “I don’t know why they let you in.”

“Why can’t I?” I said. I’d heard everybody sing in music class, and as far as I could tell, my voice was as good as anybody’s by now.

“Because, moron, you’re Jewish. Jews don’t get to celebrate Christmas,” said Samantha.

Really? I was Jewish? And Jews didn’t celebrate Christmas? This was all news to me. In between Passover seders—and attending an occasional “folk mass” to sing Peter, Paul, and Mary songs with a hippie priest with a banjo—and listening to my mother quote the guru Ram Dass—why, we’d always celebrated Christmas!

As far as I could tell, the only difference between our family’s Yule-tide festivities and those shown on television was that my parents had a Christmas rule that I believed qualified as child abuse. On the morning of December 25, John and I were not allowed to wake up our parents until 9:00
A.M.
Which would’ve been okay except that on Christmas morning—and only Christmas morning—we always woke up at exactly a quarter to four.

Jittery with glee, we’d dash into the living room, where a glittering avalanche of presents spilled beneath our tree, and rip open the one gift we were allowed to touch immediately—our stockings. They’d always contain a chocolate bar—we’d devour it—we’d squeal “It’s Christmas!”—we’d jump up and down—we’d hold up our candy wrappers—and only then would we start to realize that it was 3:47 in the morning, and we had exactly five hours and thirteen minutes to wait.

We’d take every single book we owned off our shelves, and I’d read them to my brother, one at a time.

“What time is it now?” John would ask after I’d finished
Clifford the Big Red Dog.

“Four twenty-seven,” I’d say. “Augh! Four hours and thirty-three minutes to go!”

By the time 9:00
A.M.
arrived, we were certifiably insane. We’d spent over five hours fondling the presents, gazing hungrily at the tree, and reading and re-reading
Curious George
in what can only be described as a delirium of Kiddie Christmas Foreplay. As soon as that big hand finally hit that twelve on the clock and the small one slid onto the nine, John and I barreled into our parents’ room and pounced on top of their bed shrieking “PRES-SENTS! PRES-SENTS! OPEN THE PRES-SENTS!”

Then we’d race to the tree and tear ecstatically through one gift after another—holding things up, dancing around the room, crying, “Oh yes! Oh thank you! It’s exactly what I wanted!”—before tossing the wrapping into the air and moving on enthusiastically to the next gift. We stood up proudly as our parents opened our gifts to them—a Play-Doh paperweight! A macaroni necklace!—announcing what every gift was before they’d finished ripping off the paper. And then suddenly, inexplicably, it was over. We sat there amid a wreckage of tinsel and foil paper, feeling that same sort of shivery despair we felt sitting in the bathtub, watching the last of the water swirl languidly down the drain.

Five hours and fifteen minutes of buildup, over in exactly twenty-two minutes. That was our holiday.

“Well, my family celebrates Christmas,” I shrugged. “So what?”

“Well, you’re not supposed to!” said Jennifer. “My family’s Jewish, and we don’t. It’s going against God!”

“Why?” I said.

“Because,” said Samantha, exasperated. “Christ is not your Lord and King like he is ours.”

“You have a king?” I said. “But I thought we were a democracy.”

“Augh! You are SUCH an IDIOT!” shouted Courtney. That night at dinner, I asked my parents. “Are we Jewish?” My mother stood up and went into the kitchen and spooned noodles into a serving bowl.

My dad just continued cutting up a piece of chicken. “Sure. We’re Jewish,” he said, as if he’d only just decided.

“Well, what makes us Jewish?” I said.

He thought for a minute as he chewed. “I dunno,” he shrugged. “We eat bagels and lox. We read the
New York Times
and argue about it.”

Up until that moment, I’d been under the impression that “Judaism” and “Christianity” were like zodiac signs, blood types, eye colors—vague variations of some even vaguer commonality that people had. Religion, as I understood it, was a collection of fabulous stories that resulted in even more fabulous theme parties. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. The Miracle of Chanukah. The Birth of Baby Jesus. Santa Claus. Frosty the Snowman. Moses. Peter Cottontail. Lazarus … All of these ran together in my mind, merging into one enormous “Fantasia” that fueled all the holidays.

“Well, Samantha says that Jews can’t celebrate Christmas and Jennifer says that if you’re Jewish and you do, you’re going against God.”

My mother came back into the dining room, frowning. She set down the bowl of noodles with a clatter. “You tell Samantha and Jennifer that as Americans, we have freedom of religion and you can celebrate any damn thing you want.”

“Don’t say ‘damn’ though,” chuckled my father. “You’ll piss off your teacher.”

“In fact,” said my mother, pointing at me with the serving spoon, “you can tell them that if they’re so concerned with religion, they should start practicing it for a change and do unto others.”

“What does that mean?” I said.

“That they should stop being so nasty to you,” said my father.

My mother began dishing out the noodles. She wasn’t really paying attention to what she was doing and gave my brother more than he could possibly eat. “And while you’re at it, you can tell those little snot-noses in your class that organized religion has created more problems than it’s solved,” she said. “The only way this world will come to any good is if people remain open-minded.”

“So can we still celebrate Christmas?” said my brother, clearly focused on his priorities.

“Well, what’s the difference between Judaism and Christianity anyway?” I said.

My mother set down her spoon. “There’s something called a messiah,” she said wearily. “It’s a savior, a messenger who’s an embodiment of God. Christians believe that Jesus was the messiah. Jews don’t. Jews believe the messiah has yet to arrive. That’s why Christians celebrate Christmas. It’s the birthday of their Lord.”

“Why do we celebrate it, then?” asked John.

“Because your grandmother thinks she’s a Communist and your mother loves parties,” said my father. “Now eat your supper.”

“So is that why Uncle Arthur hides his Christmas tree in the bathroom?”

Uncle Arthur was our father’s best friend. His family celebrated Christmas, too. But recently, his son, Todd, had started Hebrew school, and whenever the rabbi dropped by their apartment, Arthur and Todd made a mad dash to put the Christmas tree in the bathtub. “Whatever you do, don’t serve the guy anything liquid!” Arthur would shout. “No water, no soup. Nothing. Don’t let him pee!”

“So hold on. Jews have to wait for a messiah
and
we don’t get to celebrate Christmas?” I said. Suddenly, Judaism was sounding like a really bad deal to me. Why did
we
have to wait? I hated waiting. I hated waiting for anything. I could barely wait for the ice cream man—hell, I could barely wait for the
bus.
Now I had to wait for some messiah?

And all we really got was
Chanukah?
That
sucked.
“Eight nights of presents”—as if a candleholder and one irritating dreidel song could possibly measure up to Santa Claus, Christmas trees, Christmas carols, Christmas morning, and all the apartments around us lit up like brothels?

“Forget it,” I announced. “Christmas kicks Chanukah’s ass. I’m being a Christian.”

My mother gave a little, mirthless laugh. “It’s not that simple,” she said. “But God doesn’t really care if you decorate a pine tree in your living room or if you light candles. God cares how you treat other people, and how you treat yourself, and how you treat the world. That’s all that matters. The rest, as they say, is just commentary.”

She passed me the platter of chicken. “More than anything else, your relationship with God is your own business,” she said. “Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.”

Still, after that, I couldn’t help but feel that celebrating Christmas was a little like wearing Gina Gold’s belt: sure, it was beautiful, but it belonged to somebody else first. I worried that I was no longer entitled to it, that it diminished me somehow. Some sort of concession seemed to be in order on my part. But what? The plain truth was, I was far too greedy and lazy and smitten with Christmas to actually give it up.

“I decided I don’t want to be Mary anymore,” I announced to the girls at lunch.

I thought they’d be impressed but Courtney just rolled her eyes. “Ugh. What do you want?” she said. “A medal?”

“No,” I said, glancing at Jennifer. “I decided I’m not right for the part.”

“Why?” Samantha grinned wickedly. “You’re not a virgin?”

“Well, of course not,” I said.

As soon as I said this, the girls acted as if they’d just stuck a fork in a light socket. They began jumping up and down spastically and flailing their arms. “OHMYGOD! I CAN’T BELIEVE SHE JUST SAID THAT! DID YOU HEAR WHAT SUSAN JUST SAID?” They ran from desk to desk, shrieking with glee, “SUSAN SAYS SHE’S NOT A VIRGIN!”

For the first time ever, they actually ran outside to tattle to the teacher, who always took a ten-minute lunch break on the bench just outside the classroom. “MRS. GOLDSMITH!” they called, flinging open the door. Only Jennifer stayed behind. She glared at me. “You know, it’s hard enough, and then you have to go and say something like that.”

“What? What did I say?”

Mrs. Goldsmith appeared in the doorway. “Susan, would you please step out here a moment?” she said. The whole room went silent. Everyone looked at me.

“Ooooowwwwwhhh,” the whispers chorused, like the opening bars of a hymn. “Susans in trouble!”

“Class,” said Mrs. Goldsmith sternly. She led me by the elbow into the hallway and shut the door sharply behind her.

“Susan, dear, I need to ask you a question,” Mrs. Goldsmith said gently. “Courtney and Samantha said you told them you’re not a virgin. Is this true?”

I had never been in trouble before. Choked up, I nodded.

Mrs. Goldsmith looked shaken. “I see,” she said slowly. “And can you tell me why you said you’re not a virgin?”

“Because, Mrs. Goldsmith,” I burst out sobbing, “I’ve never given birth to a savior!”

Mrs. Goldsmith clamped her hands over her mouth.

“I see,” she said after a moment, the corners of her eyes crinkling.

“Samantha said I couldn’t be Mary in the Christmas pageant because I’m Jewish,” I sniffled, “and so I told her that I wouldn’t audition. And then she asked if it was because I wasn’t a virgin, and I said yes because … because …” I started to cry again. Mrs. Goldsmith sat down beside me and put her hand softly around my shoulders.

“You know, Susan,” she said. “The Virgin Mary was Jewish.”

I sniffled. My nose was running, and I tried to be discreet about wiping it on the back of my sleeve. “She was?” I said.

Mrs. Goldsmith pulled a tissue out of her pocket and handed it to me. “And so was Jesus.”

“Really?”
Nobody tells me anything around here,
I thought suddenly.
What else was I missing?

“I’ve heard you sing. You have a lovely voice,” my teacher said softly. “I see no reason why you shouldn’t audition for the Christmas pageant—provided your parents agree. If they say no, you have to respect that. They have good reasons.”

I blew my nose with a honk. “My mom says that as Americans, we’re free to believe as we choose,” I volunteered. At that particular moment, my mother’s latest spiritual interest happened to be a swami. I thought of mentioning this, then decided against it.

“That’s true enough,” Mrs. Goldsmith said. She stood up and motioned that we should go back inside.

“One last thing.” She paused before clicking open the door. “You might want to ask your mother to explain in greater detail what a virgin is,” she winked. “Somehow I think you’re going to want to know that at some point.”

The next week, I stood nervously before our music teacher and the Reverend Alcott and sang “The Angel Gabriel” as melodiously as I could. In the end, though, Samantha wound up being cast as Mary and the role of the Angel Gabriel went to our classmate Robert, one of the few boys in the school’s history whose voice wasn’t changing on the day of the audition. But, our music teacher announced, two other girls had shown such promise that special solo roles had been created for them as well. Alice and I would be “archangels” dressed in silver tinsel.

My solo was probably the most ecumenical hymn the Reverend could dig up. The first verse went:

My master has a garden

Fulfilled with diverse flowers

Where thou mayst gather posies gay

All times and hours.

Not exactly “Earth, Wind, and Fire”—or
Aida,
for that matter—but it might as well have been, given how seriously I took it. And yet, I had never sung outside the bathroom before. Once I was faced with an audience that wasn’t composed of porcelain wall tiles, I got nervous. My voice broke at the highest note, which fell on the word “All.” It was painful to sing and even more painful to listen to. I became convinced that I was tone deaf, that I had gotten the part by a fluke, and that I would go down in history as the Jewish Girl Who Ruined Christmas—they would write cautionary fairy tales about me—I would join Scrooge and the Grinch in the pantheon of Christmas meanies and fuck-ups—on the day of the pageant, I’d crack that high note, and my voice would be so shrill and awful that the cast iron chandeliers suspended from the church ceiling would come crashing down, crushing everyone in the pews to death. The headlines in the New York
Daily News
would trumpet: ANGEL OF DEATH CRUSHES XMAS AUDIENCE—and I’d wind up in a reformatory.