My Name Is Asher Lev (14 page)

He turned to her. “I don’t know how to react, Rivkeh. A responsible ten-year-old boy doesn’t do such things.” He turned back to me. “You will be respectful to the mashpia, you hear?”

“Yes, Papa.”

“You will listen carefully to what he has to say and you will apologize.”

“Yes, Papa.”

“I have a million things on my mind now, and I have to worry about my son drawing the face of the Rebbe in a Chumash. How could you have done such a thing?”

“Aryeh,” my mother said.

“To desecrate a Chumash. And to make fun of the Rebbe.”

“I was not making fun of the Rebbe,” I said.

“What were you doing?”

“I don’t know. But I was not making fun of the Rebbe. I don’t draw pictures to make fun.”

“I wish you would stop drawing. We were done with that foolishness.”

“Aryeh,” my mother said.

“Aryeh, Aryeh,” my father said. “What are you Aryehing me for, Rivkeh? How does it look when my son goes around drawing all day instead of learning? How does it look?”

“Stop calling it foolishness,” I said.

They turned slowly to look at me.

“Please don’t call it foolishness any more, Papa,” I said.

They stared at me and were very quiet. My father’s face was going rigid. I saw him swallow. My mother was pale.

“Foolishness is something that’s stupid,” I said. “Foolishness is something a person shouldn’t do. Foolishness is something that brings harm to the world. Foolishness is a waste of time. Please don’t ever call it foolishness any more, Papa.”

There was a long silence. I heard the rain on the window of the kitchen. The refrigerator suddenly turned itself off, deepening the silence. I felt frightened. I had never talked to my father that way before.

“Asher,” my mother said. “You are being disrespectful to your father. Kibud ov, Asher. Remember, kibud ov.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, and lowered my eyes.

My father stroked his beard and took a deep breath. “Sit down, Asher, and drink your orange juice,” he said in a voice tremulous with anger. “There are probably no vitamins left in it by now.”

    The mashpia’s office was at the end of the first-floor corridor of the school building, two doors beyond my classroom. I knocked on the door and heard him say in Yiddish, “Come in.” I went inside and closed the door quietly behind me.

It was a narrow office, entirely bare except for a small bookcase filled with books and a small dark wood desk that had on it a notebook and a pencil. Rav Yosef Cutler, the mashpia, sat behind the desk in an ordinary wood chair. He wore a long dark jacket, dark trousers, a white shirt with a crumpled collar, a tall dark skullcap, and a dark tie. His hands were white. He smiled at me across the closetlike room. “Come in, come in, Asherel. Take off your coat; yes, put it there. Good. Sit down, sit down. Put your books on the desk. Tell me, how is your mother? About your father I have no need to ask. I see your father all the time. But how is your mother? Yes? And how are you, Asherel? You look pale. Your eyes are as red as your hair. Are you feeling well?” He spoke in Yiddish and I responded in Yiddish. With the mashpia, one talked only in Yiddish.

I told him I was feeling well. I was a little tired, I said. My mother has taken me to see three different doctors, I said. I was fine, I said. I was fine.

A narrow window took up most of the wall behind the mashpia. I looked out the window at the maples on the street. It was raining outside on the maples. I saw the branches dripping in the rain. How would I paint that, the rain dripping from the branches, the rain streaking the window, the gray rain filling the world with dismal mist? People walked beneath umbrellas. The asphalt glistened. The bleak sky hovered menacingly over
the tops of the buildings. The mashpia was saying something to me, but I was not listening because I saw the clouds moving swiftly and darkly across the buildings and I wondered how I could catch that dark movement, that watery swirl of light and dark grays. I watched the mashpia put his hands on the desk, saw him still talking to me, and thought the street was crying and wondered how I could paint the street crying. I thought I had said something like that to myself before, but I could not remember when or where it might have been. The street is crying, I thought, and I’m sitting here. It’s my street and I can’t draw it. I want to paint it, I have to paint it while it’s crying, and why am I sitting here? They’re going to take my street away from me, I thought. Do streets in Vienna cry? Not for Jews, they don’t. Ribbono Shel Olom, what are You doing to me?

“Asherel,” the mashpia was saying in a strange loud voice. “Asherel.”

I came slowly back inside myself from the dripping trees and the dismal street and looked at him with a sense of surprise and shock. He was leaning almost halfway across the desk, his eyes wide with alarm.

“Asherel,” he said again. “Are you feeling all right?”

I nodded. “Yes,” I heard myself say. I did not recognize my own voice. “Yes. Yes.”

“I thought—Asherel, I will call your father and he will take you home.”

“No,” I said. “Do not call my father.”

I said it very loudly. He gave me a startled look. Then, slowly, he sat back in his chair.

There was a long silence. He sat very still, regarding me intently. I watched the rain-made rivulets on the window, the patterned flow of colorless liquid upon colorless glass. It will all die when the rain ends, I thought. But what difference does it make?

Oh, it makes a difference, I thought. And if it doesn’t make
a difference you will make it make a difference. Yes? No. Perhaps it really doesn’t make a difference, after all.

“Asherel, listen to me,” the mashpia was saying. “I am talking to you and you are dreaming.”

“I am sorry,” I heard myself say.

“If you are not ill, be so good as to listen to me.”

I took my eyes from the window.

“How shall we start, Asherel? Are you listening to me?”

“Yes.”

“Good. You feel all right now, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Very good. Asherel, how shall we start? I do not want to, God forbid, hurt you or make you feel bad. I talk to you out of love for you and your dear parents.” He paused. “I knew your grandfather in Russia. I was with him and the Rebbe’s father the night he was killed. All the Jewish people are one body and one soul, he believed. If one part of the body hurts, the entire body hurts—and the entire body must come to the help of the part that hurts. Are you listening to me, Asher?”

I hurt, I thought. Who is coming to my help? “Yes,” I said. “I am listening.”

“Good,” he said gently, and stroked his dark beard. “Asherel, your father also sees the Jewish people as one body and one soul. When a head hurts in the Ukraine, your father suffers in Brooklyn. When Jews cannot study Torah in Kiev, your father cannot sit still in Brooklyn. Do you understand me, Asherel?”

I nodded. I was looking at the window again. It seemed dark outside. Why was it dark outside in the morning? The rain had stopped. The rivulets were gone from the window. But raindrops were still on the panes, looking frozen against the strange darkness outside.

“Now, how do you think your father feels, Asherel, when his son does not want to study Torah, spends days and nights
drawing, and even draws the face of the Rebbe in a Chumash? How should a father feel in such a matter, Asherel?”

I did not know what to say, and so I said nothing. I had the impression I was not expected to respond. But how should I feel? I thought. Will he ask me how I feel? And why is it so dark outside?

“Asherel, my child, understand what I am saying to you. We all know you have a gift. We all know such a gift cannot always be controlled. When my father, may he rest in peace, was young, he had a gift for carving. When I was young, I had a gift for writing stories. When the Rebbe was young, he had a gift for mathematics. Many people feel they are in possession of a great gift when they are young. But one does not always give in to a gift. One does with a life what is precious not only to one’s own self but to one’s own people. That is the way our people live, Asherel. Do you understand me?”

I understood. It looked like night outside, black night in the morning.

“Asherel, you have a gift. The gift causes you to think only of yourself and your own feelings. No one would care if these were normal times, Asherel. We do not interpret the second commandment the way others do. But these are not normal times.”

When have times ever been normal for Jews? I thought. What is he telling me? To stifle the gift? Does he also believe the gift is from the Other Side? Then it should be stifled even in normal times; what does it have to do with the Jewish people? And if it’s not from the Other Side, if it’s from the Ribbono Shel Olom, why is it less important than what Papa is doing?

“Do you understand me, Asherel?”

I did not understand but I did not say anything.

“Asherel?”

“Look, it is raining again,” I said. I could see the fat drops
hurtle through the darkness and explode against the window. How could I ever draw or paint that? I thought. Rain like that from darkness like that exploding as though in midair upon invisible glass. But someone has done it. I’ve seen pictures of it, of a sky like that, of rain against glass. How did they do it?

“Asherel?” the mashpia was saying gently, patiently.

I took my eyes from the window.

“Were you listening to me?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He stroked his dark beard with his white hands and narrowed his eyes. “Asherel,” he said softly. “Is it true you did not know you were drawing the face of the Rebbe on the Chumash?”

“Yes.”

“How is such a tiling possible?”

“I do not know.”

“I believe you, Asherel.” He sat back in his chair and folded his arms and put a hand across his mouth. I saw him watching me intently, his eyes wide and gentle. He has a little of Yudel Krinsky’s eyes, I thought. I could make them a little wider and remove some of the lines and they would be like the eyes of Yudel Krinsky. The shapes are the same. Look at the rain on the window. The mashpia was saying something, but I did not want to listen to him any more. It’s raining in sharp diagonals to the verticals and horizontals of the window. Look at those slashing diagonals. The mashpia was saying something about Vienna but I would not listen. The darkness was gone from the street and I could see the trees beneath the lashing rain. The rain moved in waterfalls across the asphalt. The curbs were flooded with rushing streams of dark water. Oh, if I could paint this, I thought. Ribbono Shel Olom, if I could paint this world, this clean world of rain and patterns on glass, and trees on my street, and people beneath the trees. I would even paint and draw pain and suffering if I could paint and draw the other, too. I would paint the
rain as tears and I would paint the rain as waters of purification. What do they want from me? Ribbono Shel Olom, it’s Your gift. Why don’t You show them it’s Your gift?

“… to Vienna in October?” I heard the mashpia say.

I looked at him blankly.

He sighed. “You were not listening to me, Asherel.”

I did not say anything.

“What shall we do with you, Asherel? What shall we do with you?” He shook his head sadly.

Everyone seemed to be asking that now. What shall we do with you, Asher?

“I was asking, Asherel, how do you feel about going with your father and mother to Vienna in October.”

“To Vienna in October,” I heard myself say. “Yes.” I took a breath. “How should I feel? I will go to Vienna. Papa and Mama are going to Vienna. How can I not go?”

He sat there with his arms crossed, one hand over his mouth, and regarded me intently.

“Where would I stay?” I said. “How can a ten-year-old child stay alone? I cannot stay with my Uncle Yitzchok. My father will not allow me to stay. Of course I will go to Vienna with my father and mother in October.”

What month is this? I thought. April. May, June, July, August, September, October. Six months. I can draw and paint some of the street in six months. But how will I buy the oil colors? Maybe I can find something in place of oil colors. How can I know what can be in place of oil colors when I don’t know anything at all about oil colors?

“Of course I will go to Vienna,” I heard myself say again. “Of course I will go to Vienna. My father is going to Vienna to build yeshivos for the Rebbe. How can I not go to Vienna?” Then I was crying. I could not help myself. I was crying. “How?” I said. “How? Ribbono Shel Olom, how?” I sat there
crying. “I do not want to go, but I will go,” I said. “Ribbono Shel Olom, I am afraid to go away now from my street. It will leave me again and I will never have any of it back. But I will go to Vienna with Papa and Mama. How can I not go? What do they all want from me? How can I not go?”

The mashpia had taken his hand away from his mouth. He was standing now behind the desk. He leaned down and from a drawer in the desk brought out a small bottle of water and a paper cup. He poured some water and handed me the cup.

“Drink, Asherel,” he said softly.

I remembered to make the blessing over water, to which he responded with amen. I drank the water and put the cup on the desk. I looked at my hand and found it was trembling. Then I felt all of me trembling. It seemed to me I had spent long hours of my life until then shaking and trembling. I was tired. I wanted to go home and go to bed.

The mashpia said very quietly, “Listen, Asherel, do me a favor. Once when I was in your classroom, I saw you drawing in your notebook. But I did not see the drawing. Make a drawing for me. Here is a clean notebook and a pencil. Make a few drawings for me.”

I looked at him and did not know what to say.

“Asherel?” he said softly. “I will leave you alone for a while. Yes? Can you make a few drawings for me?”

I nodded, feeling a pounding inside my head.

“You can take your time, Asherel. If I am not back when you finish, leave the notebook and pencil on the desk and go back to your classroom. I will ask only that you turn out the light and close the door.” He came around from behind the desk and stood by the door. “You may finish the water in the bottle if you wish. Give my good wishes to your mother.”