Prayers for the Living (16 page)

Some over, I'm telling you.

“S
O HERE NOW
she's coming, the black girl with the check. The whole time we've been sitting she's been standing, working, waiting.”

“We're the last people here—but look here's more coming in, the night crowd.”

“Sure, we're the day crowd. Because when the house is empty you want to stay out day and night, we should be the night crowd too.”

“I don't have the strength for that. Day is enough for me.”

“Day is day and nights are nights, and never the twain shall meet. But how could they?”

“Day meeting night? It happens once in the night, and night also meets day in the morning.”

“I can never get used to living alone.”

“Who can? Could I? When Manny left for Cincinnati, I'm telling you, it was like Jacob died all over again. Except that Manny wrote.”

“He wrote very nice letters. I'm glad you showed.”

“I'll show more. I've got it all, all the writings. Come over sometime and we'll read together.”

“I would feel like I'm prying. After all it's not like they're famous people out of history. They're just people alive today, the rabbi of my temple, his wife.”

“All the more you should want to know about them.”

“Very funny. Very true. But look, darling, here's your car pulling up outside, I can see it through the window in the light from the parking lot lamps.”

“You see it? Where?”

“There, by the entrance.”

“You can see? I can't see.”

“Put in more ointment you can see.”

“Sure, my ointment. I'll put it in. I'll get better.”

“It could get worse?”

“Dr. Mickey said we'll see. Meanwhile we're trying the ointment. So it could get worse. So what else is new? I don't know a life where things could get worse? So come on, here's my driver and we'll drive you home and next time we get together we'll have another meeting and maybe you'll tell me things and I'll tell you things and we'll meet in the mall on the moon.”

“Ladies?”

“But here she is, so now let's pay the piper. Piper. Piper schmiper.”

“This is enough?”

“Enough is enough.”

“I'll give her a little more.”

“Give her enough. She works for a living. But look, such a handsome fellow the driver is. Manny hires him from his corporation in the city. A legitimate business expense. To go back and forth from here to there. So he doesn't have to drive himself, or take the bus. The rabbi on the bus doesn't sound so good, does it? Or the rabbi looking for a parking space? Look, it didn't used to be that way, but now that he can afford it, I don't say why? I say why not? And it's getting dark, and here's the check, and it's time to go and I hope I didn't shock you with my old stories about the famous poems by the King Solomon, the love story, the truth about my family, this life I live?”

“Darling, Minnie, I see now it's not such an old story, I'm telling you, to me it's news, it's hot news right out of the papers.”

A Mother's Prayer

S
INCE
I
CANNOT STAND UP IN THE SYNAGOGUE OR TEMPLE
to pray I make this silent request of You, God, whoever You are, wherever You are—a burning bush, a naked back, a cry in the night, a great big white, flapping, winged bird. Whoever. Whatever. Dear God. Please keep my children from harm, my one child actually, the rabbi, and his child. I did nothing in my life except to make this son and I would ask You now to keep him from harm. He had a rough youth as You know. The life started off just fine. But then he went out with his father on that Sabbath morning—and did You punish my Jacob for working on the Sabbath? I hope not. If You answered yes, I would turn my back on You, God. I would ask You please to leave the house of my life. But say that You didn't do it—say that You were busy in the synagogue with all of the people, the devout ones who went to shul that Saturday morning, and say that You didn't see the problem, the taxi leaving the hotel, the fire that got so big and smoky somebody called the fire department, the milk truck starting off on its rounds. I know that God is God and that You have eyes on everything. But say that these people in the shul, the very religious men, the ones who would not talk to my Jacob because he disobeyed Your Laws, say that they diverted Your attention for just a minute, and so even though You knew about the taxi, the milk truck, the fire wagon, and my Jacob and my Manny walking with the cart, say that You knew all this—still for a second, just the tiniest part of time, like the part of the body an eyelash is compared to all the rest, for this eyelash of a split of time You looked away, or You blinked, or—could it be?—You were looking at it about to
happen and You let it—no, I'll think that You were listening to the prayers, watching the men lean forward, rock forward and back, forward and back in their devotions, and You missed the instant, just as You would later miss the killing of the Jews in Europe—were You called away then to another planet? Did You have another world of Jews who wanted You to hear their prayers?—and that was when it happened. Look, learn, understand, You liked the singsong, high-low quavering, wavering of the tunes, who doesn't like to hear those old-time melodies out of the Orient, the East? It's beautiful music, maybe not so much American, but then later we will hear lessons about the connections between the Orient and America, the Jews and Indians, and if we beat drums or tom-toms or wore feathers in our hair, the Jewish Indians, would our music be any less acceptable to You, O Lord? You looked away, the crash crashed, and the glass shattered, and the truck came down like a fist on my Jacob's chest . . . and I want You to know that after all these years I could possibly begin to forgive You, if, a big IF, You take better care of my Manny and his children from now on.

BOOK TWO

TWILIGHT

“S
ally! Mrs. Stellberg! I thought you'd never get here! Welcome, welcome to this apartment so high up above the park. And did you think that you were never going to stop once you started climbing in the elevator? And could you catch your breath? Me, I've had no breathing problems, not that I ever had such problems, but the eyes, the eyes . . .”

“It's very high here, darling, Mrs. Bloch. Me, I prefer Jersey where it's low, at street level.”

“Look, I know what you mean, and far be it from me to miss a meeting with you at the mall. But it's not so easy for me to get around much anymore—I don't want your sympathy, I'm just telling you the truth—and if you can get around without too much trouble you're a very lucky girl.”

“I'm lucky, Minnie, but I'm not a girl no more. No, coming in on the bus today to see you, I decided that I'm not a girl anymore at all at all. A young man, my grandson's age, he got up and gave me his seat and didn't say another word.”

“Romance, Sally, you've got romance.”

“I've got veins and arthritis is what I've got, Minnie. But talking about sons . . .”

“Talking about sons, and moons, and daughters, and planets. Yes, so, I invited you here to tell you more.”

“Other girls . . .”

“I thought you weren't a girl no more.”

“Very funny. Some of the other girls they tell me that you've been inviting them here to tell them, too.”

“Other girls, other grandmothers, it's true they've come to see me ever since it's so hard for me to see them. Rose Pinsker, Mrs. Applebaum, Tilly Sugar. All of them girls, all of them grandmothers, they come to hear my story, and sometimes they tell me theirs. And you, you didn't like what I told you so far? You didn't want to know further?”

“Of course I want to know. That's why I've come all the way in here.”

“And they too all wanted to know about what happened to my son and their rabbi, and they don't have a right to know? All the grandmothers, listening to stories, telling their own.”

“They have a right to know. So don't get so excited, Minnie. You think that I'm jealous of them seeing you? It's a long way in here on the bus . . .”

“Next time—and don't think I'm getting hoity-toity with you—next time I'll send for you the car and driver.”

“Next time you say. So why didn't you save me the bus trip this time. It cost me four dollars the fare . . .”

“Sally, you're complaining about the fare?”

“Minnie, Minnie, I'm making a joke. Look, it does me good to get out and ride the bus. This time I met a boy, next time maybe a man, a nice young sixty-year-old. Maybe I'll see one on the way back. We'll talk a little . . .”

“You're such a risky grandmother, such talk from such a respectable woman.”

“Now I'm a woman. A minute ago I was a girl. So not a girl and I can't act like a girl?”

“Act like the grandmother that you are. Go in dignity. Don't talk to strangers. For you I'll have the car to take you home.”

“Thanks but no thanks. I'll take the bus. I'm not used to such a style.”

“It's not a style, it's a luxury. But don't knock it. From my Jacob's cart to this car with the driver, it's a long way, and when you've traveled as far as I have you don't turn down a ride.”

“Me, I haven't traveled so far. Just over the bridge.”

“And a long way besides, for you, too, you'll admit it if I push you, and for all of us, the girls turned into grandmothers, a far trip.”

“All right, all right, Minnie, you're convincing me. I deserve the car to drive me home, I'll take the ride.”

“I'm glad, darling. If it was afternoon maybe I could listen to you talk about the bus. But it's dark now, and the air's turning cold, the night is coming, it's almost here.”

“You're here alone?”

“I'm here alone.”

M
Y
M
ANNY
,
AND
Maby, they're on a trip to Israel, the middle of the East. And I'm the one in charge of Sarah who's at school now, you know, up in the Green Mountains, at the Vermont college called something-ton or other, very small, very fancy, and very—you know—free, she tells me, or at least that's the way she wants it to be. As to how free, we'll see, we'll see. You just missed her, actually. She drove down for the weekend in the little car, very small, very fancy, and not so free, that her father bought for her when she promised if she would go to this place that she would work hard and not forget about us. So the only time she's here on a trip since school began it's the middle of the week and her parents are away on a trip. She couldn't have planned it better if she had planned it. She needed some things, she said, and goes into her room and starts packing jeans and sweaters and shoes and a load of bedding, and I'm saying, you need these things for school? You have these things for school, darling. And I'm trying to figure out what she's doing, I can't see so good now with the problem, like I told you on the telephone, so I
have to lean over real close so I can see the packing, and she chases me away, she says, “Grandma, please leave me some privacy.”

“Privacy, I should leave you?” I told her, “Darling, privacy you'll get from me when I'm in my grave, God forbid, and for now I want to know what you're doing. Your parents are away on their trip—they're in Europe and Israel now, on a trip
her
doctor said would be good for her. So I'm in charge.”